Towards a Different Future
by Airheaded dude
Summary: What does it truly take to discover one's own path? For someone who has lived his all his life for the sake of others, what will it take to discover that path set for himself? Existence re-write.
1. ReDiscover

Towards a Different Future

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><p>Pilot Chapter: Re-discover<p>

A tempestuous roar...

It was the last thing he had heard before succumbing to the darkness.

Madara had succeeded in collecting all the tailed beasts and summoning the Juubi, the said beast awakened at the presence of its fragmented chakra becoming one again. The moon that had held the body of the beast shattered as its legs and tails stretched and dug out of the moon's core. It gave a monstrous howl as Madara slowly ascended to where the ten tails was, giving off a chuckle as he closed in on the hundred year dream he had so long desired. As the chakra from the Kyuubi was slowly being siphoned from his mouth, the blonde ninja held on to the last remaining of his chakra, he forced himself to go out of the sphere of blue energy that enveloped him. He willed himself to move, as he knew his life was about to end.

With a muster of the remaining life he had left, being the new sage of Myobokuzan, he began to collect the energy of the world towards him as he held on to the statue's forehead, still being connected to the statue, he linked his nature chakra towards the heretic statue. Its ten irises began to constrict as the energy began to disrupt it, stopping it dead in its tracks. There would be no more senseless sacrifices here, no more deaths on the battlefield, no more Uchiha Madara. He would guarantee that this is the last time that the existence of the Jinchuuriki would continue. He would destroy everything that destroyed him, he would destroy the world's view on ninjas, and he would destroy their view on people like him.

His breath heaving as the nature energy began seeping through the flesh of the ten tailed beast, Naruto forced himself to look up from that roar, and saw the Juubi beginning to trash about as if it was in pain, it yelped and twisted in agony as its body became rigid, it looked down towards where his chakra was being collected and opened its single eye.

The gigantic hypnotic eye had the Sharingan tomoes on each of the ripples from the Rinnegan each line spun in opposite direction of its front. Before he knew it, Naruto could feel the contortion of the space around him, surrounding him in the space's liquefied state. Like wise, the effects of the natural energy began to turn the beast into stone as the said beast used its chakra to expend some entering his and somewhat stop the invasion of this foreign chakra within it.

As for Madara, as soon as the natural energy flowed inside of him, he didn't have a chance before it completely turned him into stone. The potency of the natural chakra didn't give him enough time to teleport out of the beam. He looked up before being completely consumed by the nature energy's backlash seeing the ten tailed beast succumbing to the same fate but not before spinning its lone eye on the ground below him.

The contortion of time and space meant Naruto was about to be banished to another part of the world. After all, the Kamui (God's wrath) was a jutsu that was meant to tear a fabric of space within this dimension. What he didn't know however that since natural energy is involved, it would be something completely different, and since this is the ancestor of all the bijuu, it would be something close to a cluster fuck.

Before he could succumb to what is believed to be his death, Naruto smiled as he had finally succeeded in throwing that wrench on Madara's plans. He had done it; it was as if nothing else mattered anymore. He could finally rest without ever thinking about what would happen the next day, there were no more wars, at least, not in the years to come, it had been painful to watch countless men die trying to protect him as the last vessel. He had enough; he didn't want to fight anymore senseless battles. This was enough, he didn't care if he didn't become Hokage anymore, what mattered the most now, was that he had saved everyone that had touched his life, one way or another, that he was able to let some of the people he had deemed precious to live.

Now, he would pay for his life, he was prepared from the very beginning, he knew he could die but at least, some of the people he knew and loved remained alive. It was enough. There were no regrets, he could rest easy, everyone was waiting for him…

Old man Hokage

Jiraiya

His father

His mother

It was time to finally let this tale draw to a close. The struggle for their survival and freedom was over. He was going to see them again and be together with his father and mother.

As his eyes closed and the cold embraces of death slowly gripped him, he could only see the distortion of space before finally darkness utterly claimed him.

Tokyo, Japan:

Rain continued to pour outside as the skies darkened that mid-summer afternoon, as the small pellets of water continued to pelt the ground with its droplets, a blue haired young woman, finds an unconscious blonde man, riddled with cuts, bruises and blood everywhere, lied prone to the ground, wearing what seemed to be a very ornate and ancient looking Haori, orange pants with a khaki pouch and a giant roll of paper that looked like a scroll on his lower back. He looked almost taller than any boy she had met in school. Whisker marks were present on his cheeks as his lips looked pale. The girl kneeled down and tried to feel for a pulse, it was weakening.

With a startle, she immediately grabbed her mobile phone and contacted the local paramedics. As she began checking the man for any additional wounds, she tried to open the man's rear pouch to find any items like a first aid kit. What she saw frightened her a little.

Inside the man's pouch was an assortment of weapons, small kunai knives that seemed like new, and sharp enough to slice a single hair strand. Shuriken that were used as projectiles and looked like they were recently forged, explosives and strips of paper that were written in scribbles; from what she can see, it looked like the paper was nothing more than charms. To which she surmised that the boy looked like he was in to cosplay and that he was assaulted by a gang earlier on or he was a real ninja to begin with. A scowl on her face, the girl quickly grabbed the pouch from his back and flipped him at front to see if he had anymore weaponry in his person. Checking that there were none, she sighed in relief and put the pouch on her bag, completely burying it in under her notebooks and books. She wanted to know just how this person had obtained such ancient but somewhat well maintained weaponry.

As soon as the paramedics arrived, they quickly moved the boy into the stretcher, carefully checking if he had broken his neck.

As the boy was whisked away by the ambulance, Ami couldn't help but look absolutely confused as to who the boy was. He didn't look even remotely Japanese. Then again, that girl with the pigtails and the meatball hairstyle didn't look like one as well.

Juuban Hospital:

"Prepare 10cc's worth of Sodium Bicarbonate along with a shot of epinephrine if worse comes to worst!" Doctor Mizuno shouted. She could see that the boy was fine physically; a few small cuts and bruises here and there were all that she could see. But from what she heard from trying to get a pulse and a heartbeat that it was slowly fading.

The blonde was unresponsive to many stimuli that she had been giving. She was tempted to pronounce the boy as dead and be over with it. But she shook her head; the boy was roughly Ami's age, if not a bit older. Fate was cruel that day, for no one could find a card that the boy had for identification.

That meant no person to contact in case of the boy's death.

It was such a sad fate to befall the lad, not one person to mourn for him.

A loud beeping sound brought her out of her musings and thoughts as she saw the monitor telling her of the boy's erratic heartbeat. The Electrocardiogram gave off strong waves of different intervals. Doctor Mizuno instantly recognized the pattern.

"He's going into Ventricular Tachycardia, get the Defibrillator ready!"

The nurses assisting her scrambled to get the device, while some of the bystanders inside the emergency room were now looking at the scene that was unfolding. One person, a woman, closed her eyes from the horrifying sight of a boy struggling to live while one was looking with a pale face.

The nurses quickly closed the curtain around the scene for some privacy that they most definitely needed.

Dr. Mizuno watched as her nurses worked fast in setting up the machine and looked down at the boy who was currently struggling. She didn't know why, but looking at the blonde was like looking at her own daughter. Seeing her lying like that in the hospital, she could tell just how terrifying the thought was. Even more so, on this boy, who couldn't even be identified by anyone!

Her eyes narrowed down as she grabbed the two handles of the paddles from the machine. Her eyes darted from her nurses to her motionless patient that was struggling to stay alive.

This was somebody's child, somebody's offspring, a source of pride and joy. Just as Ami was her child, this boy was someone's as well. She would not let the boy die, no, not today.

"Clear the bed and check for any metallic substance touching him." She commanded and the two nurses that acted as her assistants did just that before she could say those words. Seeing them how they work in such a hectic environment made her somewhat feel at ease. She checked the pads to see if they were working and set the machine on charge before placing one just below the blonde's right collarbone and near his side

"Clear the area! I'm clear!" She clarified as did her assistants. "We're clear!"

"CLEAR!"

Just then, the machine pumped with two hundred joules worth of energy, surged through the boy fiercely, shocking his system as his limbs somewhat shook from the delivery of that much energy entering him.

As the hospital staff struggled to keep the boy's life, Naruto himself was within the cusp between life and death. The boy looked on, seeing nothing but pitch black. Strange though, he could see his hands and feet just fine as if he was lighting up this dark place.

"**Awaken from thy slumber, my heir."**

Naruto's head snapped out, his eyes widening within the black void.

"**You have done much, my heir. For that, a second chance shall be given. Thou shall only walk the stairs to the afterlife when it is deemed so."**

To his surprise, a sillohouete of a man formed. White outlines began to take the shape of a human. But it was all the distinction he could ever see that it was human as the lines formed a person like some nebula contained and shaped like a human. The only thing that brought forth a unique image was the six Magatama jewels surrounding his collarbone and the eyes of the noblest of all doujutsu, the Rinnegan (Samsara Eye) staring back at him.

"**Be free from the ties of the cataclysm, the beast shall no longer haunt thee. Thou art bound no longer."**

With that, the person touched his forehead with an index finger, **"My gift to thee noble heir, a piece of the monster thou has held. T'is nothing but power now, but use it well."**

Naruto could feel the benevolent atmosphere that this person was radiating. It was strange. Never would he have once thought that he would have a chance to talk to the Sage of Six Paths. He simply couldn't speak in front of the person who established the way of the ninja. His very presence commanded that Naruto, for once in his life (or not) should sit quietly and shut up. The surrounding darkness soon changed to the cosmos and then to the whole universe, all of it was spinning around them as literally billions and billions of stars lit up the vast sea of nothingness.

The man then grabbed Naruto's right hand with both hands as he closed his eyes.

"**In thy hands, thou have forged the way to peace. Now I ask for one thing and one thing only from thee."**

Naruto looked at the man as he asked, "What?"

"**Live."**

With that, Naruto felt like something pulling him back as he was tugged away from the darkness.

"Doctor, he's pulling through!" He could hear the voice say. It was obviously female from what he could tell.

Slowly but surely, his senses returned and the soreness of his entire body was met with full force with an aching groan coming from the blonde. From the smell of the antiseptic wafting his nostrils and the white ceiling above his head, he could tell that he was in the hospital.

"He's stirring awake!"

With that, a very beautiful woman with short blue hair wearing a white coat over what looked like formal attire leaned closer to him and asked, "Sir, you are in the hospital right now, can you tell me what happened or what can you recall as to why you were found injured in Juuban Park?"

Naruto wanted to speak and ask about where in the continent was Juuban and ask how the war went. He wanted to ask many questions but the only thing to escape his lips was the last place he had been in, at least they would have a clue to where he came from.

"S-Sangaku no Hakaba… (Mountain's Graveyard)"

Surely, with that clue they could make clear of what happened. The Fourth Great Shinobi War wasn't exactly a secret, after all. It was as clear as day as to what was going on. The war between Akatsuki and the Allied Forces wasn't exactly hidden from everyone. Madara and the Raikage made that very clear.

But to Dr. Mizuno, she didn't or simply couldn't understand what the blonde had meant. She wanted the boy to elaborate some more but the boy drifted back into a dreamless slumber. He was tired, too tired after fighting for his life. Dr. Mizuno simply let out a sigh of frustration as she went over to look at the boy's chart. It was fortunate that Mamoru, the intern, was with her on today's duty. That boy was studious and hard working, maybe she could let him deal with this boy once he's finally awake. She had a lot of patients to attend to anyway.

When Naruto awoke the next day, he was sitting upright in his bed. Still finding it unbelievable that he had a second lease at life, he looked at his hands; his right arm was laced with white micro pore tape and an IV canula was inserted on the back of his hand.

A small smile escaped his lips as it turned into a snicker and then turned into laughter.

He couldn't believe it! He was alive! He could still achieve his dream!

"I'm alive!" He exclaimed as his laughter soon died down, his smile never leaving his face.

"I'm alive…" He said once more, confirming his existence to the world.

Uzumaki Naruto's luck was never THIS good!

A knock on the door suddenly interrupted his thoughts as he saw a man wearing the same attire as that of the lady earlier, but seemingly a few years older than him, gave him a small smile while carrying a chart with his name on it.

"Hello there, I must say I'm surprised that you would be awake and this energetic after your episode yesterday."

Naruto simply nodded and asked the person, "Where am I? Where's my stuff?"

The man before scratched the back of his head all the while laughing nervously, "Are you talking about that giant scroll? It's here in your closet. Honestly, we didn't even know how or what it is, we assumed it's just some decoration or a cosplay item since we found you in some weird clothes, so… I-It's not like its bad or anything, your hobbies, I mean." That last statement meant that the person before him was a bit unnerved. Naruto had to admit though, anyone who saw a ninja would be unnerved.

Naruto simply raised an eyebrow at this and had to ask, "What are you talking about? That scroll isn't some decoration, Ero-sennin had that thing on him because it has something special written in them."

Mamoru's eyes widened at this, "That reminds me, those characters written in that scroll, those are pretty ancient texts. I saw some of those letters in a museum once. I couldn't understand any of them, though."

Naruto raised an eyebrow at this, "What are you talking about? Those characters are written as seals for different purposes! I maybe an apprentice seals master, but I know what's written in them like its nothing!"

Mamoru looked astounded at this, "Oh! You can read those things? That's really amazing! You must be some kind of genius or something!"

Naruto looked completely confounded at this. Those characters written on the scroll maybe almost runic, but the sealing arts simply required the use of the alphabet taught to them in the academy since they were kids!

"It's nothing special, you know. Most of the characters there are taught to us ever since I was younger."

Now Mamoru looked much more interested in what Naruto said. What kind of highly advanced school teaches kids in using an already obsolete alphabetical system?

"And I thought Kanji was hard. Here, let me grab that scroll from your closet so you can look it over. Maybe you can guide me with what's written in some of them."

Naruto looked apprehensive as the intern went to the closest and hefted the large scroll by bedside, "Are you sure? A lot of what's written there are just gibberish and only meant to do something specific. Those are seals for a reason."

Mamoru rolled his eyes, "Like what, to exorcise demons? Which reminds me, you've yet to give your name, and the authorities found no records of you since you were sent here yesterday. Weird though, it seemed like you aren't registered in any place here in Japan. We couldn't find a single identification card on you."

"Well, I've got my registration card on my pouch bag. Why didn't you check that?" Naruto asked. Mamoru looked at Naruto as if the blonde grew a second head.

"Sorry, you don't have something like that when you were sent here. It was probably stolen. We'll just have to go by your statement, then. Just for the record, my name is Mamoru Chiba and I'm a clerk in this hospital."

Naruto nodded as he said his introduction, "Uzumaki Naruto, Konoha Ninja."

A pregnant silence was present between the two. Both of them were either waiting for a response or simply having a hard time believing the other.

This Naruto person was definitely a weird one.

Just then, thinking it was a joke, Mamoru chuckled and said between laughs, "That's rich, Naruto-san! I didn't know you could joke like that!"

"What are you talking about?" Naruto asked, confused at the Mamoru's expression just now.

"You're a ninja? Naruto-san if I didn't know that you could read ancient texts, I would have definitely called you an otaku!"

"What the heck is an otaku?" Naruto was now more confused than ever.

Mamoru's eyes widened, "You don't know what an otaku is?"

"Well, I'm asking, aren't I?"

Mamoru had to shake his head at this. How could this boy before be so knowledgeable and still so ill informed about things like this?

"Well, nevermind that, but you honestly expect me to believe that you're a ninja?"

Naruto scowled at this and gave an indignant response, "Of course, I didn't earn my hitai-ite for nothing!"

"It's not about you being a ninja, it's about ninjas overall! I don't think I've ever met anyone like that in my life!"

Naruto was now scratching his head at the man's words, confusing him more and more, "The hell are you talking about? The Fourth Shinobi World War was declared months ago! There's no way for you not to know about ninjas! Where is this place and why don't you know anything about ninjas?"

Mamoru was taken aback by this, and worst of all, Naruto was looking at him like it was no laughing matter.

Mamoru sighed as he sat down; obviously, this conversation wasn't going to get them anywhere.

"Can you at least tell me the last place you knew when you were conscious?"

Naruto simply leaned back and answered, "I already told the lady I saw the last time I was awake."

"About that, what's Sangaku no Hakaba and where is it?"

Now Naruto's scowl deepened. At first he contemplated on what to answer to Mamoru when he looked over to his window. He was surprised when he saw a strange looking structure taking the scenery away from what seemed like a metropolis below it. For all of his travels, he would have heard of a tower like that somewhere along his journey.

It seemed like it wasn't the case though. Naruto stopped his train of thought. Where the hell was he? Why has this man never heard of the bloodiest and most horrifying war in the history of the shinobi nations?

Voicing out his concern first, Naruto had to ask Mamoru, "Where am I?"

This time, his voice was subdued, as if he was trying to process something. Without any idea of where he was, he wouldn't know how to get back.

"You're in Juuban, a neighbourhood in the Azabu district of Minato-ku, Tokyo." Mamoru answered. Naruto, however, didn't seem satisfied.

"Where is it? Where is Tokyo? Where is it on the map of the Godaikoku (Five Great Nations)?"

Seriously, was this guy for real? Mamoru raised his eyebrow while looking at the boy who was looking outside without as much as looking back to him. He had to tread lightly around the boy before he would…

**SLAM!**

Naruto had suddenly pinned him to the wall in a speed feat that caught him completely off guard. Naruto's right forearm pressed firmly on Mamoru's neck while the blonde's left hand carried Mamoru's pen. Its tip was pointing dangerously at his nose.

"I asked you. Where the hell am I?" Naruto's emotion then changed from disbelief to anger, impatience slowly rearing its ugly head from the blonde.

Mamoru then and there, for the first time, looked like he had to believe Naruto's statement earlier.

"J-Japan, and there has been no map records of a certain Godaikoku on the map."

Now Naruto's mind began running ideas a mile a minute, desperately trying to figure out where he was and what the hell happened to him. Naruto, out of frustration, threw the pen at the concrete wall on his right. The pen whizzed through it and planted itself on the opposite wall creating a small, almost bullet like imprint on it.

He let go of Mamoru who looked in surprise as Naruto began detaching the intravenous canula stuck in his arm.

"He-hey, what are you doing? You aren't cleared of off anything, yet!" Mamoru tried to stop the blonde from dislodging the IV fluid attached to Naruto's arm but he was too little to late.

The blonde made quick work of the offending object in his arm and detached the canula like it was nothing. He pushed Mamoru back and began muttering and performing the appropriate hand seal for his technique.

"Iu… inu… tori… saru… o-hitsuji…"

Naruto then wiped the blood from where the needle of the catheter was inserted earlier and shouted, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Technique)!"

Mamoru watched as the smoke wafted from his hospital bed spreading outward. He looked in surprise as a small green toad with a black cape and grey hair for eyebrows and goatee had appeared before him. Normally, he would have been surprised and shouted out of pure shock. But for some reason, he couldn't. There was something about that frog that reminded him terribly about Star Wars.

"Naruto-chan, you're alive!"

And it talked. Mamoru had to slap himself to remind him that he wasn't dreaming. Yet the toad stood there on its hind legs, its forelegs were crossed over his chest as Naruto asked him.

"Pa, that should come in later, I want to know what happened after Madara extracted Kyuubi!"

And Pa talked, he talked about what happened after the war, how Madara's petrified corpse fell in ruin on the ground. How Konoha had gone and continued to search for him after that climactic end of the ten tailed beast. How his name was erased from the list of active summoners from the toad scroll. He didn't just disappear of the face of the planet, he practically vanished!

"With that being said, we haven't had a word with Tsunade yet, but come this week, we'll let her know of your current predicament." The wise old sage answered his summoner before looking through the window.

"I would have never guessed, however, that you would survive such an unlikely situation. If I had to take a guess, then I'd say you were blessed with the luck of the gods."

Naruto averted his gaze from the old toad and gave a melancholic smile.

"Somehow, that doesn't stem far from the truth yet, I feel absolutely angry about it." Naruto mentioned as he held his forehead with his right hand.

"Being in a place that I shouldn't be, living a life I shouldn't have, it all frustrates me that my blood is boiling." Naruto mentioned, clutching the white sheet of his bed with his left hand.

"I was supposed to die; I was ready to accept what comes after. Yet something pulls this on me to keep me from my happiness. Sometimes, I can't seem to know which is worse, dying or never seeing anyone you cared for ever again."

Fukasaku turned to the boy with but an understanding expression. In this place, he was nothing. He had nothing and nowhere to start. For him to be put into this place and no idea on how to get back, it must be mortifying to the blonde summoner. Reverse summoning didn't work, they had tried that. But no matter what they did, Naruto wouldn't appear and the toads were all losing hope. They simply had no link to their summoner and were ready to declare him dead. But with this saving grace, at least the boy is well within a better position right now.

"Naruto-chan, I'm disappointed in you." The old toad admonished. Naruto looked at the old toad sage as if he grew a second head.

"This is not the boy who Jiraiya-chan held so much praise." The old toad continued, and Naruto growled at it. It's not like he was angry at Fukasaku, but the frustration of having almost no possibility of going back, he might as well be dead.

"Then what should I do?"

Fukasaku looked at the blonde boy and then sighed, "That, Naruto-chan, will be all up to you. You are in a different place, where you have no expectations, no goal to achieve, no one to fight for. Your whole life, you have lived for the sake of others. Right now, you only have yourself. You have a freedom to choose now, Naruto-chan. To live a life far different from what you dreamed, a life where there are no expectations given to you, no burdens to carry except your own weight. In here, you can start a fresh life. Discover your own path, Naruto-chan. Until you can find your way home, I suggest you think hard, lad. You are still young and you will experience much more as time passes. Like what Jiraiya-chan had set his mind to, remember to harden your resolve for when the time comes, your heart will be your sharpest tool yet."

The old toad turned his back from the blonde, signalling his lecture to Naruto has ended. He was about to return to the plane of the toad realm but not before giving off one more instruction to their anointed one.

"Summon me once more in two weeks time. I will be in Konoha to gather notes from the Nidaime and the Yondaime in their understanding of Time-Space Ninjutsu. By then, you should have already found an answer to your own question."

And with that, Fukasaku vanished in a small cloud of white smoke, leaving behind a quiet Naruto and an awestruck Mamoru whose back is currently against the wall.

"W-wow... That frog, he looked like Yoda and..."

"You're Mamoru, right?" Naruto interrupted with that question, it was clear with that contemplating look on his face that he wanted to say something to him.

"You look like an understanding person, so could you leave me alone for now?" The blonde had finally said. The grimace that he showed while biting his lower lip indicated his frustration and possibly anger, so without as much as a word, the medical student simply left the room while giving off an understanding nod to the blonde

Mamoru gave a deep sigh as he went out, he felt his legs collapsing on him as he went out, and somehow the scene that just took place earlier took a lot out of him.

"Is that you, Chiba-san?"

The clerk turned his head towards the source of the voice and saw an exact carbon copy of Dr. Mizuno standing by the door with a rather concerned look on her face.

Finally acknowledging the daughter of one of his teachers, Mamoru stood erect from his position and asked her, "Ami-san, what are you doing here?"

Her expression did not change as she looked over to the door near the clerk as she said, "I need to ask something to the patient that was brought in yesterday."

Mamoru knew that it was Ami who had found the newly identified Naruto by the park yesterday. Still though, Mamoru had to uphold something for the patient for both the blonde's and Ami's sake.

"You know I can't do that, Ami-san. It's against our job to divulge any information outside of those concerned with the patient." Mamoru declined, he had hoped that she knew where he was coming from. This was Dr. Mizuno's child after all and he knew for a fact that Ami was a smart girl. Usagi was barely surviving middle school because of her and for that, he could at least be thankful for the girl. Besides, he doesn't know what the blonde inside the room might possibly do to her if she were to enter now.

"This is important because I have some of his possessions and it concerns something very dangerous." Ami replied. She knew that Mamoru was only protecting the blonde's privacy, but she needed to confirm something.

Mamoru, for his part, suddenly grew a cold sweat from that last statement from the bluenette. He flinched slightly, but it was enough for the girl to notice and she frowned.

"You know something, don't you, Chiba-san?" Ami asked while Mamoru inwardly cursed. He looked like his hand was caught in the cookie jar as he looked reluctant to tell more. But Ami was adamant in finding out just what was going on. The fact that she had been carrying an array of deadly weapons from a beige pouch clearly says her curiosity as to why the boy was carrying them and how pristine and sharp their condition was despite the era they were currently in.

So instead of keeping quiet about what she had found, Ami took the risk and handed Mamoru the pouch bag that Naruto was talking about earlier and his expression changed from apprehension to surprise as he took the bag from Ami's hands when she showed him.

Mamoru opened the bag slightly and was further surprised when he saw a set of well maintained kunai and shuriken and then a ream of fuuda seals just by the side.

Ami looked relieved when Mamoru had checked the contents of the bag and told her to not tell anybody of what he was going to say.

Ami would have called him a nutcase after he was done, but Ami was simply too tactful and considerate that she would not debase Usagi's boyfriend like that. But Mamoru knew one thing, that this was just one of the many things that proved that Naruto was indeed a ninja. Now that particular fact had been established and accepted, here comes the hard part of the whole thing, explaining and fabricating lies about Naruto. No way in hell would any of his peers and superiors believe what he had just found out. He was all for truth and all that, but the last thing he needs is either being labelled as a total nut job or a pissed off Naruto after his head for something so private to be revealed to the outside world.

* * *

><p>Several days later:<p>

Mamoru had suggested that he had to undergo physical therapy just so he could remain inconspicuous aside from his case of supposed long term memory loss. He had to shut up to anything that involved questions about his past and that 'Naruto' was a name he had suggested simply out of familiarity. That and because he had no civilian records anywhere nor relatives present, he needed to be extra careful about his situation. Add to the fact that he could be labelled as some sort of psycho, it was best to remain quiet about his whole thing. From what he understood, ninjas didn't exist here. They were either relics of an ancient past or just plain myth overall. That would explain why Mamoru was so surprised when he used his summoning or that he didn't know that there was a large war going on.

Furthering his problem was how he should adapt to this place. He currently has no idea about this place he was currently in. All he could see from the window of his room was literally hundreds of symmetrical blocks with barely any sight of lush green trees. That's was how much he knew about this world.

But he could ignore that for a while. That's because he has been thinking about the lecture Fukasaku had given him. With possibly no chance of ever going back to his home, it had essentially taken his whole dream away just like that. It had taken his purpose, and it served as a painful reminder how far away he was to his loved ones.

A knock on the door disturbed him from his depressing thoughts as a familiar voice made its presence known.

"Naruto-san, it's me, Ami. May I come in?"

Naruto responded with a yes and the girl entered inside, albeit wearily. Ami was the one who had been teaching him about what was currently outside of his room, teaching him about the world outside and the culture that exists outside.

As Ami sat down in front of him with a prim and proper posture, she began lecturing him about the town and the common everyday activities that surrounded a person. Naruto's attention slowly drifted from the conversation because he found it utterly boring.

Although Naruto found it boring, he had to remind himself that he needed to mingle with the crowd to remain anonymous and not have any more people snooping around his life.

"Naruto-san, please pay attention."

Naruto's attention, however, was not to the girl who was speaking to him but on to a shadow cast just outside the window.

Ami was about to ask the blonde just what it was that interested him outside, when Naruto grabbed her by her shoulders and pushed her down as hard as he can to the floor with a powerful shout, "Get down!"

**CRASH!**

Then, she heard the sound of shattering glass. The blonde flipping the mattress above him with a reverse mule kick turning it over to whatever there was that shattered the window and immediately grabbing Ami and rammed himself to his door, all in his hospital wear of a simple white shirt and his green boxers.

Once he reached outside he held up his hand in a weird hand gesture that Ami had seen and soon, multiple loud explosions were heard inside his room as he carried the blue haired girl.

Naruto was tense throughout the whole thing as he stared back at his handiwork, thankful that he had set up those explosive notes under his bed just in case someone tried to attack him in his room. Although Ami had said that this place was relatively safe, he wouldn't take his chances just like that. Although his planned escape route had been the window where that… _THING…_ Just came out of, he wasn't one to complain about having a compromise here and there. He wasn't worried about his things inside, they were on the opposite direction of the bathroom and he could come back to it later.

So without another glance, Naruto left his now destroyed room as he ran, pulling Ami and careful not to strain her while he did so.

"W-What's going on?" Ami asked, suddenly confused as Naruto pulled her away from the scene that just happened as Naruto explained without as much as a heave.

"Something just tore through my window and began releasing a large amount of killing intent. Right now, I'm taking you to somewhere safe before that thing catches up to us." Naruto answered, as clear and as calm as he could possibly can, mirroring his experience as a ninja throughout his life.

Ami's confusion and bewilderment turned to worry as Naruto pulled her along. She didn't know what the term 'killing intent' meant for the blonde, but to her it sounded just as bad. Right before she chose to decline and saying she was a senshi herself, Naruto pushed Ami towards one of the staff members before turning his back from the girl as he gave his orders clear, "Get out of here and stay safe while I deal with that monster!"

Right then and there, Ami had now pieced together that there was indeed a Youma present within the building. And just right on time, she saw the female like creature standing before the blonde, looking worse for wear as her body was literally covered with wounds and burns coming from the weird paper seals that somehow detonated right in front of her face.

"Arrogant human, you'll rue the day that you manage to anger me!" She shouted in fury, but before she could even make a move on her own, Naruto had already speared her away from the crowd as Naruto pumped chakra with his legs, increasing his speed and crashing through the window on the opposite side of the corridor. Ami and the staff members gasped in horror at what seemed to be the blonde's suicidal move of literally taking the monster out from the sixth floor.

Ami ran to the opposite area where they last saw Naruto and worriedly looked down, only to find a small crater and a standing Naruto just outside a smouldering crater just to his front.

By all accounts, Naruto should have broken his legs from the fall, but the sheer miracle (or is it?) from that lethal descent from where she was standing proved that indeed, she didn't just meet some boy on accident, but she just met someone who would influence her, one way or the other.

Down below, Naruto remained calm but his body was still tense. From his experience as a shinobi for most of his life, it taught him that unless he saw a carcass in front of him, it's not dead.

And true to his intuition, the monster rose from the destroyed ground it stood on. The blonde could now clearly see just what it is he had been fighting. He could easily tell it had wings because of it gliding from the window earlier although right now, it seemingly vanished. He could tell it had the figure of a female. The monster before him had very shapely hips and a sizeable pair of breasts if you squint hard enough. But apart from that somewhat attractive body figure, her skin was grey.

"Uzumaki Naruto, what the hell have you gotten yourself into, this time?" He asked to nobody in particular as the answer was the growl coming from the weird woman like… Thing… That he had stomped on earlier as they crashed on the ground.

"You will pay for what you did, I will make your end agonizing!" She shouted but Naruto's response was nothing more than a simple shift in his stance and a total and utter brutality of his job.

Chapter pilot: End.

* * *

><p>Well here's the re-write of 'Existence'. And as a surprise, I'm not dead, just too busy with Med School! I haven't lost interest! I'm just a whole lot busier now more than usual!<p>

Disclaimer: As always, I do not own the above mentioned series. Credit is given to the authors of each respective series.


	2. ReEngage

Towards a Different Future

Chapter 2: Re-engage

* * *

><p><em>Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.<em>

**- John F. Kennedy**

* * *

><p>Naruto didn't just take a step, he <em>moved<em>.

He turned around his enemy with well honed footwork, years of training and practice with his former teachers suddenly showing his hard work as he moved ever so fluidly around his enemy. He weaved; he ducked, spinning around, evading, parrying, blocking and countering. Honed senses telling him where his enemy will strike, where she will try to attack next.

Naruto could tell that his enemy, despite her physical advantage over any human, had poor reflexes compared to a honed warrior.

'_She's too straightforward.'_ He thought, reminding him of how sloppy he was during his younger days as a ninja when he relied much more on surprise tactics and a whole lot of elbow grease and luck.

He leaned back as a swipe barely missed his neck and he countered with a rising kick to the creature's chin and then turning into a textbook perfect back flip. The creature was suddenly dumbstruck at how a simple human was able to keep up with her.

Seeing as the monster was stunned while in mid air, Naruto saw the perfect chance. He charged forward straight with another kick, this time on the monster's chest. Naruto twirled in midair, performing his signature jutsu, the Kage Bunshin as two clones popped into existence, the billowing smoke left behind as the clones moved before it could dissipate. Two clones linked with the monster's arms as they took her down on the pavement and stop any form of escape.

Naruto then thought of a way to finish the fight. Obviously, without any ninja tools, he had to stop the fight with as little chakra expenditure and less destruction as possible.

The Rasengan was out and although he could technically perform barehanded finishers, he didn't want to take a chance of blunt force ending the fight so suddenly because that worked _so _well last time.

He thought of something, and remembered his training with Asuma back then and the pen he had tucked away from Mamoru since the first day that they talked. He reached behind his shirt and pulled out the pen he had secretly kept.

By application, the pen was harmless, but to a trained soldier such as Naruto whose job specialty was assassination, anything could become a weapon.

He poured chakra on to the pen, and started grinding the chakra against each other, forming a highly pressurized blade of wind at the lines of the pen. It straightened and honed its form until it was smooth and forming a sharp point at exactly the tip of the object.

The monster looked down as it was on the ground, and Naruto saw his opportunity to finish it.

**SWISH!**

The blonde let the object fly from his hands, straight and true, it hit his opponent dead on the forehead, tearing through skin, bone and brain before going through the other side and impaling itself on to the cemented floor with an obvious crack.

The monster, too shocked to even know what had just happened, fell down in death, not knowing what had just killed her. Her eyes were still open and expression as she lifelessly fell down had said it all while a weird colored substance fell from her head before she turned to ash and vanishing with the wind.

Naruto finally took a sigh of relief as the clones vanished from sight in a plume of smoke.

Up above, Ami watched in a mixture of emotions. Whatever she felt, it surely made her conflicted.

Was she surprised? Most definitely, she was.

Disturbed? Probably, she had never seen a brutal and bloody ending to a Youma before in her life.

Scared? Yes. She was scared out of her wits. The blonde acted efficiently, acted like he knew what he was doing. And he had done it without hesitation, without as much as a care to what he saw, as if he had already seen such form of carnage from where he was from.

Suddenly, Naruto looked up to her with concern written all over his face. He jumped from his position and landed on the wall and scaled the building upward before coming back on the sixth floor.

The blonde approached her with but a single question escaping his lips.

"Are you okay?"

Ami, getting over her initial shock, now became much more fascinated about the blonde rather than feeling scared now, experiencing some of the battles, even though she was relatively new, made her get over her emotions much easier.

"Ah, yes, I'm fine. Thank you for what you did."

Naruto simply nodded, "Anybody could have done it back home. I'm a warrior and it's in our rules to help out civilians in their time of need."

With that, Naruto turned towards the ward, asking the nurses if they had other rooms to occupy seeing as the last one was trashed by the monster (and partially because of him).

She turned her head back at the blonde. No doubt the resulting event would surely interest her mother.

* * *

><p>One Day later:<p>

Dr. Mizuno looked down on Uzumaki Naruto's chart. She re-examined the status of the boy, rechecked his tests, his lab results, his last assessment coming from the nurse and narrowed down her eyes.

The boy's vitals skyrocketed from the day he was awake. They all seemed to normalize in just a matter of twenty four hours. Yet she was certain that Naruto had some form of nerve damage since he found it hard to move his body coming from his therapist. Yet when they examined his reflexes, they were all normal. _All muscular reflexes_ were checked and they all functioned well indicating his motor nerves were intact as was his sensory nerves because of some stimuli exercises he had done. So how was Naruto not able to perform well with his therapist?

That only meant that the blonde was faking it and that he was most likely hiding something, or it was just a case of hypochondriasis, a condition that results from health anxiety.

Ami had told her about what happened the day before, how some strange monster invaded the hospital and how Naruto had saved her. She asked the staff members if her story was true and they confirmed it, along with the fact that the blonde had apparently tackled the monster and jumped along with the creature from the sixth floor all the way down below.

Common sense would tell her that her daughter needed an appointment with the hospital's psychiatrist but with the emergence of these monsters lately in their quaint little town and even coverage of it from the news, she was inclined to believe her daughter.

She wanted to remain suspicious, but her daughter was saved by this boy, that she wanted to believe that the boy simply had no idea what to do with his memory loss and that he was a good person because of it.

To her front, Mamoru was eagerly awaiting the good doctor's judgement on Naruto's case and finally, she nodded.

"Looks about alright, I've seen the boy this morning and he's doing well after I assessed him. You can discharge him now."

Mamoru looked at his superior and inwardly gave a sigh of relief.

All those cover ups and times of keeping Naruto's background a secret would finally be over.

"What about his expenses?" He asked, suddenly being brought back to the world that the blonde had no money to pay for his hospital bills and that he was most likely stuck here until someone was willing to pay for his stay.

Mamoru palmed his face at that. He forgot that it was hospital protocol.

"Don't worry about that, I've paid for his bill. Consider it as thanks for saving my daughter. I don't think I could ever repay the boy enough." The doctor smiled.

Mamoru once more sighed in relief this time, more openly.

"What's with that gesture?"

Mamoru stood up and shook his head frantically.

"Nothing, Dr. Mizuno, just glad that I could discharge one of my patients now! Workload and all that…"

Dr. Mizuno raised an eyebrow at her subordinate but decided to let it go.

"Just before you let him go, I want you to bring him to my office later for one last test. Can you do that, Mamoru?"

Mamoru was sweating profusely now but he complied nonetheless.

An hour later, Naruto had arrived to Dr. Mizuno's office, bewildered.

The good doctor had asked for him to go to her office earlier and he complied. Instead of wearing his trademark orange suit however, he settled for his black shirt and orange pants.

"Naruto, I see you're doing well now that you're about to leave."

The blonde merely gave a small chuckle, a little humbled, "It was nothing, Dr. Mizuno. Anybody could have done the same thing."

"Except surviving a drop from six floors, you mean. It's either your physique is built like Superman or you're just extremely lucky."

Naruto tilted his head at this, who was this 'Superman' that the doctor was speaking off? A second lapse of his expression was soon buried from his façade as he sat down when the doctor ordered him to.

"Now, before you go, I'd like to let you have some tests involving this piece of paper. Now don't give me that look, Naruto…" She said glaring at the blonde who was looking like he was ready to pout.

"You're taking this test to see how you would do well in school." At the mention of the word, school, Naruto was already hitting his head on his desk. He became a ninja just for the purpose of trying to get away from school. Now they want him back there?

Dr. Mizuno knew that the blonde hated school. Not something she would expect from a supposedly boy genius that knew how to read ancient texts like the back of his hand.

"Naruto, this is for your own good. Now come on, we'll see how well you'd do and where to place you, exactly."

It was at this time that Naruto was reminded about the importance of academics here by Ami and how you were supposed to be better off the more you were educated. With a sigh, Naruto took the test anyway seeing as Dr. Mizuno would remain suspicious if he just upped and ran away at the sight of the paper. He reminded himself that he needed to blend in with the crowd and remain inconspicuous.

It wasn't his style, but he saw no obligation to grab the attention of an entire population that will simply think of him as crazy.

Dr. Mizuno watched in mild fascination as he saw the supposed boy genius' reaction from question to question, frustration, to rage, to surprise and despair, she saw the blonde answering the questions as if he had gone through some form of hell.

An hour passed and Naruto looked like he was about to resign himself when he gave the paper to be checked by the doctor herself.

Dr. Mizuno looked at the paper in amusement as she checked it. Unsurprisingly, Naruto was just about average in some areas of science, average in math and very poor in English. He did, however, scored perfect with Nippongo and literature, leading her to believe that the boy either had a good teacher in that subject or he was raised here in Japan. Still, that shouldn't put him in Mamoru's description of a genius in her book. She needed someone else to look over at that particular field.

"Well, it seems you're doing rather average and below average for someone of your age, Naruto. Do you remember what school you came from? It's either you had very poor teachers or you didn't listen to them enough. Though Mamoru tells me you can read ancient texts very well. Something college and above level graduates should ever hope to achieve and there's a specific profession and course for that. This leads me to believe you have a priority more in your hobbies than your actual school work."

Naruto scratched the back of his head at that. It wasn't as if he had very poor teachers, he had excellent ones at that barring one. He just never listened to all the academic stuff when he was still back in the academy.

"I don't remember much of what happened, but I guess maybe that's why I was so screwed up with that test."

"I was right of you spending time more with your hobbies than anything else." Dr. Mizuno shook her head at this.

"No matter, I can see why you were doing so poorly at school. If your mind had more focus on the matter at hand then you wouldn't be like this." Dr. Mizuno stood up and patted the boy on the shoulder.

"So I'll set the record straight, I want you to go to school. I'll pay for all your expenses until you can recover your memory. At such a time, should you recall anything, tell me and we'll see what we can do to help inform your loved ones where you are."

In all respects, Naruto's train of thought was derailed when the good doctor told him that he was going back to school.

"You're about as Ami's age and you did save her, I feel like I can't thank you enough. With this, I'll help you build your future. You'll do well to stay in school and you'll thank me later for realizing your priorities."

By this time, Naruto was sweating bullets. This lady just told him that he had to go back to school. He felt like he shouldn't say no, which was because he himself did not know what to do next and it would do well to have someone like Dr. Mizuno, Ami and Mamoru. Unlike before that he could charge right through a problem with shuriken flying, he couldn't do that here. For fear, as Ami stated, of being discovered by people that only want to use his power for _their _personal gain, Naruto had to agree with that sentiment. He didn't want another Akatsuki hunting him down to the ends of the earth and them harming innocent people.

Going to school sounded like a small price to pay compared to the people that would most likely take interest in his abilities.

So, with that, the blonde had to agree with the good doctor to let himself be sent to school in exchange for some form of sanctuary.

* * *

><p>Mizuno Household:<p>

Ami was surprised that her mother would suddenly do things like this. Was her mother feeling indebted to the blonde that he was now living under the same roof as her?

Ami had never been one to socialize that much, she was always cramped up in her room trying to study to become like her mother. But by the way that her mother oh so readily spent their money on the boy's medical bills and studies, it seemed a bit too much even for her.

"Sorry about all of this, Ami-san. But your mom insisted and I couldn't exactly…"

"No, it's fine." Ami had cut the blonde off. The girl simply sighed and helped the blonde move on to the spare bedroom just to the right of her room.

She looked at the blonde who was wearing the same clothing he had when she first saw him at the park minus the jacket and the cloak. He still had his scroll with him, but he carried it with his hand rather than wearing it.

"That reminds me, Naruto-san, do you have any spare clothes left for you to wear?"

Naruto shook his head, "During the fourth shinobi world war, I rushed to the battlefield and didn't think anything else after it. I don't have much of clothes other than weapons I stored just before setting off. I think this maybe my one and only set."

Ami sighed at this, for her, this would be a long day in helping her new housemate.

"Alright, we can go look for clothes once you set your stuff here. It would be terribly unhygienic for you to wear the same clothes for more than three days."

Neither of them wanted to do the prospect of looking for clothes. For Naruto, it was because he wanted to get the day over with and take a good night's rest. For Ami, it was because she wanted to finish her studies for the day since she had been unproductive for the last two days fighting off Youma.

When Naruto was ready, the two left the reasonably large house and went to the nearest mall in their place. During their trip of awkward silence, Naruto tried to start a conversation about some part of their lives, likes, dislikes and maybe dreams of the future while Ami answered as promptly and as simple as possible.

That made Naruto looked up to the sky once more when he mentioned the word future.

When Ami noticed Naruto's sudden mood change, she couldn't help but feel compelled to ask.

"Is something wrong?"

Naruto shook his head, "No, it's nothing. It's just that there's something I've been meaning to think about for the past few weeks or so."

Ami raised an eyebrow at this, "Well, whatever it is, I hope it doesn't involve people coming after you, Naruto-san. Dealing with this town's Youma is bad enough."

Naruto chuckled lightly at that statement, "I've dealt with them shortly after I got here. Besides, I doubt they could even reach me in this place."

Naruto's laugh, however, was hollow. It was full of bitterness and uncertainty. Ami wouldn't be able to notice, not when Naruto is a master of hiding his true emotions.

Two weeks ago, Naruto might have shown just how much he was a wreck, both physically and emotionally, but not now. He disliked being pitied on. He may accept help from time to time but he still had some sort of pride.

As they made their way into the mall, Naruto looked somewhat in awe of the place. It was large, larger than any building he had seen in Konoha and the building was bustling as if it was a market place. People going shop to shop, looking and buying something, the fast paced life inside this mini metropolis amazed him.

"Ami, is that you?"

His musings were cut short, as a voice called out to Ami. He turned around and could have sworn that he saw a clone of himself under a Henge and a lot slimmer than he imagined.

Ami turned around and saw Usagi who was walking her way towards them. Inwardly, she gave a sigh. She just hoped that Usagi didn't take anything she saw the wrong way today what with being with a guy and all.

"What are you doing here, Ami? I doubt you'd come to a mall just to have some fun." Usagi mentioned and looked over to the blonde on Ami's right who was looking around the mall.

"Who's your friend?" Usagi asked once more, adding one more question before Ami could answer.

Ami politely introduced the boy, "His name is Uzumaki Naruto and he's someone my family is taking care of while his parents aren't here. He's a family friend, Usagi. And we're shopping for some clothes that Naruto needs right now."

Usagi looked at Naruto as if she was gauging the boy. Naruto looked at Usagi with unease and took a step back when she leaned in closer. A few seconds later, Usagi grinned and Naruto blinked at her weird gesture before patting the boy on the back.

"Well, you're okay with me, Naruto! Being cute is just a bonus as well!" She shouted to him before turning back to Ami.

"You got a good catch! If I wasn't so in love with Mamoru, I'd be jealous!" Usagi mentioned to Ami who just shook her head and gave another sigh.

"Usagi, don't take this the wrong way, we aren't involved in _that _kind of relationship. Our parents are just good friends and it just so happened that Naruto's parents had to go to a business trip for some time."

Naruto simply nodded to Ami's answer and not said a word. He wasn't the one fabricating excuses. If he added more details, it would surely confuse both him and Ami.

Usagi didn't look quite convinced though, "Are you sure? You two aren't making this up as an excuse about what you truly feel right? I've read about something like that in a manga."

"Usagi, please don't relate this to a manga, it isn't the same. Naruto and I are just friends, nothing more." Ami finalized while Naruto added with an uneasy smile, "Yeah, having some sort of feelings for a childhood friend can be awkward."

Usagi raised an eyebrow at this, obviously not yet convinced.

"Well, if you say so. But I…" Usagi pointed to herself then pointed to Naruto then to Ami, "… Am keeping my eyes on you! So I'll come with you with your shopping!"

She mentioned that last sentence with glee earning Ami to look at Naruto with an expression that clearly meant she was slightly vexed. The male blonde simply looked amused with Usagi's bubbly expression.

"She's alright with me. You've got good friends here, Ami." Naruto commented as they went, with Usagi bothering Naruto with several questions about his life before he got here.

"So… Where'd you come from, Naruto?" She asked, leaning closer as Naruto replied, "Way up north. My parents went overseas because of their work and they didn't want me to come because I wasn't interested in their line of work and it's hard adjusting to a place you've never been in."

"Wow, you guys must be loaded like Ami's if you always go overseas like that." Usagi mentioned this with wonder in her eyes as she looked at Ami who simply coughed slightly at Usagi's statement.

Naruto looked at Ami who didn't look concerned as much and then grinned, "You can say it's like that. Though, I still miss them…"

_My friends…_

_My village…_

"But what can you do? I'm stuck here for the time being until further notice." Naruto mentioned as they entered the department store.

Usagi nodded and then asked, "So what are your hobbies?"

Naruto looked thoughtful about this for a moment and then answered, "Well, I guess you could call gardening a hobby. But when I'm bored I had to practice writing. My sensei always made it a point to practice my penmanship."

Usagi looked curious at this, she had never heard of a guy their age taking interest in gardening. Heck, she never heard a _girl their age_ taking hobbies in gardening. To her, Naruto was a weird boy. And writing? Seriously, why is that?

"Why gardening and writing?" Usagi asked, obviously curious. Naruto looked sullen for a moment but regained his composure before replying, "It's because I couldn't get out much when I was a kid and I found Gardening as a way to relax with my parents always going and my sensei tutoring me."

In truth, gardening was something the Sandaime introduced to him when he was a boy. He had tried, countless times, to vent Naruto's frustrations into something positive. But again and again, Naruto always had to come back pulling pranks around the village. Sarutobi had even come to Naruto's apartment once or twice a week to see how Naruto's plants had come along.

Not wanting to disappoint the old man, Naruto took good care of the plants he had and developed a sort of green thumb in taking care of them.

Writing, however, came from his former master. Jiraiya had always encouraged him to take up the sealing arts. He didn't know why until much later after he discovered his heritage. But he felt indebted to the man, it seemed like Jiraiya was trying to ease the fact of introducing his heritage to him.

Usagi noticed the melancholic look from Naruto's face and felt like she had asked something sensitive to the blonde, she looked concerned and asked Naruto, "Did I say anything wrong?"

Naruto gave a smile and shook his head, "Nothing, just brought up a lot of memories from my old sensei."

Ami glared at Usagi from this gesture as the girl simply backed away for a moment. It was obvious already that Naruto was easy to identify as quickly depressed. He had no way of going home until he discovered a way back. And from what she could tell from the expression of the blonde, it was his stoic look that she should watch out for. That's because she couldn't tell just how dangerous or how disturbing Naruto's thoughts were when his face wore that expression. It was that look that reminded her how efficient and deadly he was days ago when she bore witness to him brutally killing that Youma.

She shuddered at the thought. She did not want to be reminded of that.

Naruto noticed that Ami had been staring at him for the longest time and simply gave her a smile, "Is something wrong?"

Ami, caught up in her thoughts, suddenly flinched and unknowingly blushed when Naruto looked at her way, more out of embarrassment than anything else.

During their trip around the mall, Ami noticed how Naruto was enjoying Usagi's company. He noticed how boyish Usagi can be sometimes, if by eating much more than any person he would have known in a woman not named Tsunade was an indication. Except Usagi isn't a grouch and she was much more of a ditz than anything else.

He laughed at her jokes and she was easy to be around. He guessed it usually happens to people who find it easy to relate to someone. And Usagi, reminded him of himself in a lot of ways.

The blonde male felt better all of a sudden. Maybe because it's what Usagi does to them most of the time. It was… Wonderful to be around the girl, he had to admit. He felt as upbeat as her.

If it weren't so disturbing, he would have fallen head over heels for Usagi as fast as he had come to love Ramen.

There was just, something about her. Something that brought smiles to everyone around her, even Ami, who Naruto would later identify as too strict, would let out smiles when she was with Usagi.

As their shopping for clothes continued, much to Naruto's dismay and annoyance, they sat at an available bench while the two girls looked tired but visibly contented. Naruto, being the only male and the one who had to give in to the necessary evil, became the designated bell boy of the two.

He set the bags down to a plop near his side before sitting at the edge of the bench and looked absolutely exhausted.

"This is the last time I'm going shopping." Naruto muttered as he looked at his side, seeing Usagi talk to Ami before he gave another sigh.

He looked at the bags and then looked once more at the girls. He had noticed that none of the stuff that they had bought was for the ladies. He had no money as well, so Naruto was utterly grateful for the two. He had never been one to go buy clothes when he was younger; the Sandaime bought them for him. The tacky Orange jumpsuits merely came from a time when Sarutobi taught him the value of money and immediately bought the clothing at a reasonable price.

He smiled, perhaps if he had gained some money, he would treat the girls as a gesture of gratitude sometime.

As he reached out to the bag to see a shirt he had noticed that had the color he grew on, a sudden spike in his senses that went overdrive suddenly erupted in him like a geyser.

"**Hello, child, how good it is for you and me to meet?"**

Naruto had acted, on his own and immediately leapt from his seat as he dashed. He had, over the course of his service during the course of the Fourth Great Ninja War, grown attuned to the senses of using Sage Energy and the Kyuubi's chakra when using it. His body adjusted to the wellspring of senses invading his body and among them, the ability to sense killing intent and malice in subtle forms.

"**Why are you trembling? Come, touch my hand and smile and greet!"**

Usagi suddenly stood up as he noticed Naruto making a dash.

"Wow, for a sheltered guy, he sure has quick feet!" Usagi commented, but Ami didn't look at Naruto's explosive athleticism at that time, rather, she noticed the blonde's expression.

It was this exact situation why she was compelled to study Naruto's behavioural pattern. He was much different than any other person there was out there, barring the fact that he was a marooned alien in their planet, it utterly frustrated Ami that a boy like Naruto was so compulsive that she can't even predict how he will behave!

"**For if little children go badly and if my anger takes its toll…"**

It was at this moment when they saw Naruto make a quick snap turn to his left that she decided to follow.

Naruto, who had endured an entire war and survived (even barely), had keen and sharp reflexes that surpassing that of a normal human in pique physical condition. He gathered that it was just a side-effect of many that involved in the exposure to a bijuu's chakra and the energy of the earth itself as well as his training.

"**Pay the price and give to me your soul!"**

A woman walked over to a child, who carried with her, a small stuffed animal. What it is, Naruto didn't care, because he was more focused on the woman leaning down and grabbing the child's hand with the little girl looking at the woman, too scared to even move. The child was trembling, staring at the messy haired woman that had glowing yellow eyes staring back at her. The woman's face was hidden from the shadow of her hair except for her eyes.

As she was about to touch the girl, a hand held on to her wrist.

"Excuse me, kid, but is this your mother?" A blonde boy asked, the small girl looked up to the boy and shook her head. The blonde scowled at this as he turned back to the creepy looking lady.

"You're scaring the kid there, ma'am. Were you just here to talk to her or what?" Naruto asked, seeing as there were many people around him, he couldn't just straight up and beat the ever living hell out of this one, even if she was a monster.

"Why yes, I did. I came here to help her find her parents. Is there something wrong?" The woman replied to the blonde who was looking at the woman suspiciously.

"Nothing, it's just I heard a bad wind was in here. Turns out I was wrong." Naruto turned his back for a moment for the bait. The child behind him was already running away to her mother.

The woman simply flashed a predatory grin as she had suddenly jumped at the blonde with his back exposed. Naruto had then ducked from the surprise attack and easily avoided the woman who was literally jumping him with his opponent sailing over head.

Naruto quickly used a forward roll and grabbed anything in his hand that could be used as a weapon. Unfortunately, the thing that he threw was nothing more than a circular ashtray that was on top of a garbage can.

The woman laughed at his attempt as she approached the blonde who got up and went and punched her. The woman smirked wickedly; she could see the punch sailing past her but then as if something has happened, something had smashed her over her head and she went sailing past through a clothes rack before she had recognized the person's description.

Wild blonde hair, depicting the rays of the sun and fierce sapphire blue eyes, whiskered cheeks lined as if scars were marked by three blades each. They were told to watch out for this boy because of how dangerous he was. If they had somehow encountered him, then it was best to think of a way to escape rather than facing him alone. She had heard that this person had a brutality worse than their own, that his cruelty was worse than a youma's.

"Could have sworn that you were trying to attack me all of my sudden." Naruto said to her as he broke of a steel pipe that was a meter tall and approached her. The woman looked back as the blonde raised the offending object over his head.

Fear radiated within her as she instinctively jumped back, her disguise deteriorating due to her lack of concentration.

What Naruto saw made him raise his eyebrow. Her hair was as still dishevelled and her eyes were a gleaming yellow, her ears were sharper now and her incisors were much more pronounced even though her hair covered her face and only her skin was the most notable change with it turning to green. Overall, nothing was much different from her, except for her skin.

"That's what you look like? Your disguise sucks!" Naruto shouted at the monster who merely growled at him. She knew he was provoking her, if she gave way to her anger now, it would do her no good especially with one such as this person.

She had to think her way through this, even if the fear she was currently hiding was making it harder to come up with something.

She looked around and saw countless people already running for their lives as they ran out. She growled and noticed that she was now cornered as Naruto approached him slowly, as if he was stalking his opponent and waiting for her to make a wrong move.

She watched the boy, stepping sideways and pacing at her front and looking at her wordlessly. She can tell that he was intimidating her and she knew it was working. But how could a single human put that much fear in her even if she knew that she had far outclassed any human to date?

Naruto walked around her, stalking her like a hunter does on its prey. Prodding, planning and watching her every move with his fierce blue eyes.

The monster knew that he was gauging her threat level. The boy worked like a smart predator but does things that even they would consider barbaric.

As he took a step forward, she became alarmed. His footsteps rapidly became quicker and his eyes depicted that he was going in for the kill. It was here that she felt her back against the wall.

She felt exactly what many of the humans felt when they attacked, like a cornered rat.

With that she took a deep breath and shouted as loud as she could. It only came as a sort of last resort, but she had noticed that the air at her front suddenly got blurry as the object at her front were blasted away from the loud booming voice.

Naruto did not have time to react as he was suddenly engulfed by the large blast and was violently throttled outside the store as multiple clothing scattered about. As the dust settled, she could see the damage she had produced and her fear turned into confidence. She walked outside, her newfound confidence stemmed from the boy not expecting her to come up with that attack.

She looked at the damage in front of her and to the boy who had crashed hard on to the building's fountain causing the water to gush out like a hydrant as people scattered about and away from the scene.

Naruto got up, finding himself in a world of pain. It was excruciating, being slammed on to concrete and to have met something with a force of Gamabunta's tackle, he was lucky that shinobi like him tend to be much more durable than any civilian. If it were someone else, they would have died from the force of the attack alone.

He looked up straight towards the Youma that was looking down at him condescendingly that was scared out of her mind moments earlier. He scowled. He didn't expect that. Perhaps he should take note that these creatures tend to have unique abilities of their own.

No matter, the damage was already there and if he were to be honest, he could do not much else lest he reveal what he really was. It was here that the monster was suddenly distracted by two girls wearing what he could tell as scantily clad uniforms and suspiciously looked a lot like Ami and Usagi. But that was impossible, both didn't seem the type to wear something like that, especially Ami who always emphasized proper behavior and always wore plain looking clothes.

Naruto shook his head out of such thoughts for a moment and took this chance for a distraction. Naruto ran as fast as he could, looking for anything that may help him. He stopped when he reached over at a small accessory shop that sold motorcycle gear. He looked around, careful not to be seen and grabbed a motorcycle helmet that covered his upper head and eyes with a shaded visor, a pair of gloves and a jacket. He went over to the next store which was an outdoor gear shop and grabbed a leather satchel from there and armed himself with knives that he saw at kitchen store, storing them in the satchel.

It was then that he decided that run back to the fight and finally let loose.

Sailor Moon and Mercury were finding it hard to face this Youma right now for her ability to send out shockwaves through her voice. Both of them didn't have anything other than their hands to fight because this monster would be able to nullify any of their attacks through sound waves. Sailor Mercury had proposed earlier for a sneak attack but neither one of them could pull it off.

Mercury couldn't do it because even though she had the knowledge of pulling it off, she was more concerned about Moon and that she knew that she had to take all of the Youma's attention before she could strike. And she thought Moon was more like the type to botch up a plan rather than follow through. The Youma was smiling viscously at them as she spoke, "Fools, you senshi think that you can best me? If that boy with the golden hair could not outdo me then what hope could you two ever hope to accomplish?"

It was here that a knife had suddenly flown from the right and embedded itself on the Youma's right shoulder.

The pain from being impaled made itself known against her as she screamed. Sailor Moon and Mercury looked surprised as to the sudden attack. Both looked at each other and then looked back as another knife embedded itself this time, on the youma's left forearm.

"Are you doing that, Sailor Mercury?" Moon asked to the azure haired girl who shook her head at this.

"No, but I know someone who might be." She said and watched in morbid anticipation to where the blonde will strike. She could tell it's going to be brutal, just like how it went with the Hospital.

The Youma thrashed around, looking at every which way for her attacker as she screamed bloody murder. She took a deep breath and was about to let out another sonic wave when she was suddenly struck with three more knives from the back courtesy of a man wearing a helmet and black shirt. Apart from his lips and nose, the only thing left exposed in showing his skin was his black sandals. She looked at her back and saw the man briefly before disappearing from her view once more via a plume of smoke and reappearing behind the two senshi.

"She's mine." Naruto warned them before dashing at the enemy, who had her back exposed completely by the shinobi as Naruto leaned forward and grabbed the last knife from the leather satchel at his side. With precision and fluid grace, Naruto leaped from his already incredible run and a combat knife ready for use. Gathering wind chakra once more to the blade, he sharpened the knife to a point it could cut easily through solid steel and it glowed, like an incandescent blue light and just as easily, he swung the blade sideways at the youma's neck without any form of resistance as if he was merely cutting the very air itself.

Shocking to say the least was the monster's response. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth didn't even open. It felt nothing more than just a small tickle at her neck in just within a moment's notice or even less, there was no pain, her whole body felt numb while the masked person grabbed her head full of hair and her body came crumbling down leaving her head on Naruto's hands. The glazed look in her eyes remained as all the life in her suddenly vanished before disappearing in a handful of ash and brimstone.

Sailor Moon looked over in her own shock while Sailor Mercury looked concerned. There was no doubt that this was Naruto and his style of fighting still brought forth a queasy feeling in her stomach. The boy with the helmet merely looked down on the floor seeing the collected piles of ash and remained silent for a moment.

He didn't feel any remorse in striking her down. She was ready to kill a child so he acted within his reason, that much, he knew. Surviving the ninja war and having faced people who seemed impossible to redeem, Naruto took note that it was better to bear that responsibility rather than making them face their sins on their own for fear that they will never see their errors and involve more deaths at his hands.

Silently, Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury watched the boy's peculiar behavior before he vanished in a cloud of white smoke, but not before looking back at the two senshi and being engulfed in the plume and vanishing.

"Wow… Who was that?" Sailor Moon asked incredulously as Sailor Mercury answered. She didn't know why, but from when he looked back at them, she could tell that she was staring at him beneath that visor of his.

"Someone who I'm glad that's on our side."

Naruto was at the rooftop of the very same building that the creature had assaulted earlier. Thoughts of the battle made him feel quite natural. As he suspected, he lived and thrived in combat. But there was also something else in that. He hated the monster with a passion. One of those things attacked an innocent girl. And before he knew it, he had done something that brought a sense of tranquillity within him.

The thought alone strengthened his inner being to the brim with energy he had never thought he had. With that, he looked at his open right palm and closed it into a fist. His expression would have told anyone that he had decided on something. With a bite of his thumb, Naruto drew blood and began performing the sequence to a summoning technique.

Exactly as they had talked about, he and Fukasaku shall meet again and today was the day.

Smoke billowed from the cement that Naruto's hand had touched and from the white cloud, the figure of a small green toad with grey hair had appeared and behind it were numerous amounts of scrolls that contained many theories concerning Time and Space Ninjutsu. These were notes written by the Nidaime Hokage, the Sandaime, Jiraiya, Uzumaki Kushina and the Yondaime Hokage themselves.

More than a decade's worth of knowledge, passed down, researched, painstakingly improved, tirelessly written down and meticulously recorded for every trial and error now lay at the blonde ninja's hands.

Naruto looked incredulous! Is the old frog expecting him to study all of THAT?

Surely, the Fukasaku must have been joking! There's no way he would be able to understand all the technical bull crap in that thing!

"Right on time as always, Naruto-chan, you do know how to make an appearance at least at the last minute." Fukasaku said in good humor while his apprentice kept glancing at the small mountain of wrapped paper behind him.

"Ah yes, as I promised, all of the scrolls here at the back pertain to all the postulates, theories, seal formulas and frameworks of Time-Space Ninjutsu made throughout the century. The seals formulas are mostly from the Sandaime's time, to Jiraiya-chan's and finally to Kushina and Minato's time. While the actual principles, the practical knowledge, the seals and the sequence are from the Nidaime and the Yondaime themselves. Tsunade-chan allowed me into the archive that was miraculously spared during Pain's invasion. But more to that, I want to ask you about how you are feeling now?"

The blonde looked down on the toad and instantly knew what he was going to say. Forgetting about the monumental task that he had for that day, Naruto answered without as much as hesitation in his person.

"I have to stay here a bit longer, gramps." Naruto replied, earning a look of confusion coming from the old toad.

"I know you want to ask why, but I just can't leave the place behind like this. Just today I saw a kid getting attacked by this weird creature and kept mumbling about obtaining her soul."

To this Naruto clenched his fist as he uttered with a scowl, "If I were a bit later, the girl might not have made it and that thing could have gone for other children inside that place."

Now Naruto answered Fukasaku, his eyes were the same as it was days before the war, determined, focus and much more resolute.

The old toad noticed his expression and he smiled as Naruto continued, "I want to protect this place. I want to fight for it. I want to protect them. It's because I can't repay this town enough. Some of the people here took care of me when I didn't even ask for it. They made me feel human, much more than I could say about Konoha or any of the five nations. In here, I'm just the same like them to their eyes but I know I'm so much more than that. And it's in that view that I have to protect them. My debt and gratitude to this town has something to do with it, but I don't want to leave this place in chaos. Now I realize my own purpose now if the case that I can't come back does happen. My own purpose is to fight for the weak. I'll be the one to stand up for them when other people can't. I'll be their symbol of hope. I'll be the one who would stand tall against all of the nightmares that come alive. Back then, I'm not just a ninja or a soldier, I'm Uzumaki Naruto, a human infused with the power of the Ninetails, given the strength so that I can fight against the dangers brought upon by the person responsible for my parents' deaths. But now, I'm different. I'm someone else. The sage asked me to have another life to live. And this might be where I can start living beyond the name and title of Uzumaki Naruto, the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Yoko. Who I am now, it's still to be determined. But I'll do everything I can to be that someone."

Fukasaku looked at Naruto, whose eyes remained as they are, blue, deep and full of determination, of will, and of undeniable conviction. The old toad's smile never left his face.

The blonde boy was back on his hind legs if only his resolve. Perhaps as time passes, his old self will be back as well or he become something so much more.

Fukasaku spoke to his apprentice, pride welling inside him for the blonde sage, "Very well, if that is what you think. But I hope it's not an excuse in not reading all these texts about Fuinjutsu and Time-Space Ninjutsu. After all, being an Uzumaki, sealing is metaphorically your birthright."

Naruto's jaw hit the floor as he saw the stacks and stacks of scrolls behind the old toad, "_All _of it? Are you sure?"

The old toad gave a hearty laugh before adding, "Indeed, Naruto-chan. You have to understand that Time-Space Ninjutsus are one of the most advanced and very complex in terms of requirements. If you wish to learn of a way to get back to our place, you're going to have to read on the basics of Fuinjutsu, understand the purpose of handseals and finally…" The toad then pointed to the pile of scrolls.

"Learn and improve upon the postulates, jutsus, and theories of each of your predecessors coming from the Second Hokage up to the Fourth. It is here that I can only lend my help. Everything would solely be up to you."

Naruto's only reply right now as he felt his knees weak from the thought of reading all of this material, was a small groan while saying, "You got to be kidding me."

The old toad gave a hearty laugh at the blonde's response before turning his back on his former apprentice.

"Do you remember Jiraiya-chan's words before he started your training as his official apprentice, Naruto-chan?" The old man asked out of nowhere.

Feeling like he should humor the old toad about that question, Naruto answered regardless.

"The foundations of a great ninjas rely on the basics rather than greater, more complicated jutsu which are just the results of understanding the basics like the back of their hands." Naruto said, remembering the old pervert's lecture word for word, Fukasaku nodded as he put up a single hand sign.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I must go back. Dispelling the Kuchiyose here is much more strenuous than back home. Remember Naruto-chan, you are who you choose to be. Do not let the opinions of others define you, but rather, you should define yourself. But I guess that you should already know that."

With that, Fukasaku disappeared in a plume of white smoke leaving behind an obviously vexed blonde ninja while staring at the pile of scrolls left behind by Fukasaku.

'_I can't believe I have to read all of this and mix it with school! This place already sucks!' _Naruto thought in irritation. But he never once regretted on what he decided if he his gut was always on the right track. Now was no different. To him, the circumstances are what changed, but he knew, it was all the same. It was the same hand he had been dealt with and he always had an idea that not even this would stop him.

The almost vagabond ninja had let out a much truer smile than he had before. Far from his goals, yet, somehow, he could already see the cloud with the silver lining.

Who knows? Maybe he'd discover some things much more in his stay here.

It would be hard, it would be arduous, and no doubt would be filled with obstacles, but when has he ever not faced impossible odds before?

To be continued…

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><p>Two fights in one chapter? Man, I think I'm getting sloppy. But I guess I can take that as a sign that I haven't been paying much attention to my writing and worrying about med school but I digress.<p>

This chapter has brought forth so much of my thought about Naruto's developed character being more developed in more ways than one, at least for me. 'Naruto, if you take away his dream, take away the ones that he loves, what is there left for him?' I've always had that question when I was doing this fic. What is there left for a man who virtually has nothing for something to cling on? Especially with one who is close to those things as Naruto? His eventual search for a purpose is what made me write this thing and I hope I can take him further than that as the story progresses (or if my interest keeps me with this.)

Leave a review and tell me what you think.


	3. ReMaster

Towards a Different Future

Chapter Three: Re-Master

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><p>They say in order to change a man; he must first be disassembled to the core. Strip away his belongings, his upbringing, his social status, his identity, and his purpose and what is left?<p>

It's nothing but an empty husk that takes a shape of a man; a moving, living, breathing hollow being with nothing in its mind, no purpose, a void of unending darkness, and a being meant to exist just because.

In order for that change to occur, the person stripped upon everything that made him unique must first discover his identity, then his purpose, then his will and all the rest of the superficialities that comes along with a man figuratively reborn from the ashes of his old self, a phoenix personified.

Uzumaki Naruto, former jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Yoko, survivor and last living host from the fourth ninja war, saw himself as someone who had seen his new purpose in life.

Perhaps a small, insignificant or even a self destructive path, but he couldn't care less, for his very purpose consisted of being there for other people. He was one to create and bridge bonds with multiple persons and many of his peers tend to agree.

Even if he was just something close to an alien to many of the people here.

For him, the feeling of isolation will never go away. Here he was, stuck in a place that he could describe as something close to his wildest dreams. Yet even though he looked, talked and interacted with the people here like he was one of them, there was still a sense of difference lingering within him, like he shouldn't even be here.

Such is the life of a ninja marooned somewhere he wasn't supposed to be.

But he knew that this existential crisis would have to wait. Because he had just started relearning the basics of Fuinjutsu, an art he had neglected ever since his return in Konoha not only that, due to the nature of his hectic schedule back then, he never got passed the title of 'novice' in the field (aptly named by Jiraiya) when he knew solving this problem heavily depended on the sealing for the advanced masters and above.

Naruto sat cross-legged as he was unravelling the scroll that Fukasaku lent him for the umpteenth time. He was reading it all in complete focus, hoping that at least he could have an idea on what to do next.

The old toad had instructed him to return to the basics, that he should first figure out what seal does what. The blonde had cursed his awful reading habits (there was little to none) and his inattentive behavior of the subject matter.

His mother and father filled their time and attention on the art and become famous for it, so why couldn't he do it?

Naruto growled in frustration as he hit his head on to the wooden desk in his room. All the material he was reading was entering his head and passing through his ears. He just couldn't do it well on his own!

The blonde sighed. The scroll that he was reading was only but the fourth chapter of the sealing arts that he had to study again. It wasn't as if he could just use Kage Bunshin in this place, he had to be careful in his secret. That and he had to locate for a marginally large space in the city to do that. He was still new to this town, and he had to check it out first before he could spam his clones and give them all the tasks that he had to do.

A warm sensation soon made its presence known to him as he looked to his window, the sun was already rising, and the all nighter he pulled could only help him retain what little information he had learned. So far, the blonde was mostly recalling all of the basics that Jiraiya taught him, what to do and not to do, what to retain and what to discard away as useless junk of information. Naruto now knew how clear cut Jiraiya's teachings were and noted that even though he was a goofy pervert, he at least knew what he was talking about.

A ringing sensation entered his ears as he looked at his Alarm Clock.

It was Six AM and he had to get to school by seven to register. Naruto groaned amidst his sagging eye bags. Although he was used to pulling an overnight watch, it seemed like going to school would be something of a bigger task than watching out for your back and keeping yourself alive.

"I graduated school to escape that place. Now I have to go back?"

Suddenly, the thought of him dying in a ditch somewhere might have not been so bad.

He got up, although rather sluggish. As if in a robotic trance, he grabbed his towel on and out he went from the door of his guest bedroom. He yawned as he went out, completely oblivious to what he was doing.

As he hazily went to the bathroom, he never noticed the voice of Dr. Mizuno warning him about walking around the house in his attire.

Naruto could care less. He was both exhausted and drowsy. He knew that a way to remedy that was to take a nice long cold shower. He yawned as he reached for the bathroom door and was suddenly met with a blue haired girl that was looking quite scared of him at that moment.

Naruto merely waved at the girl with a simple greeting of, "Hey.", before he became aware of the situation that he was currently in.

He paused, as his mind slowly caught up to his body and his eyes widened in both surprise and fear.

In front of him stood Ami, who was scowling at him, hiding behind a shower curtain and what seemed like a wooden stool that was flying straight to his face.

One loud scream later, Naruto, sporting a huge mark on his face, and Ami were now sitting by the table while Dr. Mizuno was shaking her head in exasperation.

"Let that be a lesson to both of you. Naruto, once you're awake please be sure that you are aware of what you're doing and walk around the house with a shirt on. I will not tolerate people strolling in the halls half naked. Ami, I hope that teaches you the lesson of locking the door once you're in the bathroom. Smart as you are, even you have your lapses in judgement."

Both of them nodded once as Ami kept glaring at the blonde who merely kept uttering apologies to her.

The two ate in silence and left as soon as they were done. Naruto, now sporting a pair of denim jeans and a blue semi-fitting shirt, followed Ami as they were heading for the train station. Ami looked over at their current live in partner and noticed how drowsy and exhausted he was. The day they came back from the mall's fiasco was the day that Naruto walked home with a lot of scrolls in his hands, four to be exact. She didn't know what they were and it seemed somewhat important judging from how Naruto had excused himself earlier that day before going home and carrying his bags, but she knew she had to open up that particular topic sooner or later.

Once they began the long walk to the train station, Naruto yawned loudly and slumped forward as he saw Ami walking ahead of him. His vision getting blurry, he requested the girl in front of him that they make a quick pit stop at any vending machine so that he could get a can of coffee.

Ami had noticed how tired looking Naruto was. Although she couldn't exactly leave Naruto's oversight alone earlier, she didn't want the boy to be doing so poorly in school at his first day as well. So with a sigh, she agreed to the blonde's request and watched as Naruto scurried off to find the nearest dispenser for his needs.

As he went and got his desired caffeinated beverage, Naruto's attention turned from his coffee to the small group accumulating not too far away. Naruto's blank stare turned to small scowl as he heard them letting out angry grunts and jeers as well as a wolf whistle.

'_What the hell are these clowns cheering about?'_

The sound of a woman yelling in the middle of the crowd got his attention once more as he emptied the can of its contents and drinking it in one go. Thinking that it was now clear of its contents, he began tossing it up in the air and catching it, waiting for the right cue for him to enter and disrupt the group's inappropriate merrymaking that was making him retch.

"What are you lookin' at, you fucking Ganguro?"

Perfect.

Naruto let the punk turn him around the shoulder so he could get a good look. With a toss of the empty can in the air, the blonde turned to the hostile man's face and with his hand moving like a viper, gripped the man by the throat in a vice like grip so fast that he didn't know what just happened before he felt his face smashing through something brittle as his head was shredded by shards of broken glass before Naruto retracted it from the vending machine and literally kicking the butt of the thug to the wall before falling down.

It was then that Naruto caught the empty can in the air with his right hand and in one fluid motion, threw the offending object straight at the crowd with one of them looking back to look for the ruckus that broke something brittle.

The man's face was hit. The mark of the aluminium can embedded itself on his forehead as it bounced unceremoniously into the air with a twirl before Naruto rushed with inhuman speeds and started causing chaos all around the gang with his can of coffee still spinning in mid air.

A brown haired girl standing in the middle of all the men around her took her chance and just like a fierce animal, she began attacking her enemies without remorse with powerful punches and very fast kicks. Thugs began dropping like flies when she saw a streak of blue and yellow blow by a set of thugs that sent them flying which way and generally causing havoc all around her.

Naruto seemingly noticed her fiery and very physical if, a little 'showy' in his eyes.

'_Pink… Wow.' _Of course, Naruto would never say that out loud or risk being smashed to the face with what seemed to be a very painful kick.

A textbook overhead toss later, the tall girl looked around and saw a blonde boy with spiky hair, catching an aluminium can of beverage from mid air without looking back and tossing it in the trash can before he wordlessly went away.

"Hey, you!" The girl shouted and pointed to the blonde, who merely turned around with his head with a bored look in his eye and looking back at the tall girl and asked her.

"What?"

"You didn't have to help me! I could've handled it on my own!" The woman shouted while Naruto simply replied rather sarcastically at that.

"You're welcome for me trying to help out. _Obviously, _a large group like that couldn't have stood a chance against one lonesome you."

The girl's temper flared at that as he walked over to the blonde and pointed directly to his nose.

"Listen up, blondie, you don't bother people with their own problems, if you want a fight then go start one of your own!" The girl shouted and Naruto gave a childish raspberry.

"You can't tell me what to do, lady. Now buzz off, I'm going to be late for my new school."

The girl with the curly brown hair shuddered in anger at the insufferable blonde who simply turned around and walked away.

"Oh so that's it then? Well if you seem so gung ho about fighting for the weak, why don't you see what _I'm_ made of and see if I'm just a helpless little girl you make me out to be?" The girl pointed a thumb to herself a haughty grin now escaped her features as Naruto simply ignored her coaxing for a fight. Ami and Dr. Mizuno would be mad at him if he instigated one on the first day of school.

'_Seriously? If it were anyone else that statement could have gone out on a different context entirely.' _Naruto thought about it and shrugged. The blonde dismissed the girl's statement as if it was an afterthought.

"Whatever, I've got something much more to get worried about." Namely, catching the train and not having to face another angry woman in the form of Ami.

The girl was shaking in fury as she stared at the back of the blonde haired boy. How this boy was able to disregard her like that? It was a good thing that she'll never ever see this disrespectful boy ever again! Or else she might have done something drastic!

Thirty Minutes Later:

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto and from here on, I'll be your classmate until the end of the year."

There was an audible sound of something colliding on something hard. Here was the boy she thought she would never see again, by now, donning the school uniform that she knew he wasn't wearing the first time she saw him.

Everyone turned their heads to see Makoto who had her head against her desk, before giving off a glare to the blonde who never even looked intimidated by her. The blonde must either be fearless or completely stupid for him to be completely unfazed by the woman's hostile look that she was giving to him making many of her classmates flinch. Makoto was not known in the school as someone who was gentle. Far from it actually, she had issues that had sometimes made her go to the principal's office on several occasions though that was rare.

"Ah, Kino-san, you look like you and Uzumaki-san had quite a meeting. And since I don't permit hostility in this classroom, that and I was already planning on it, Uzumaki-san will be sitting next to you."

As if there was nothing going on between them, Naruto obeyed the teacher's command and walked towards his seat with a disinterested look about his face. His peers all stared at him with astonishment as they saw him seat right beside Makoto who was still glaring at him like she was poring holes through his head.

All around them, the students all thought the same thing.

Who was this daring son of a bitch that would seemingly be unfazed by a glare from one of the most dangerous students in the school? Didn't he know Makoto's reputation?

As the class began, Naruto kept trying to ignore the brunette that kept staring at him like he was some convicted rapist or something. To which, he finally said in a whisper while not making any eye contact, "Do you mind if you stop staring at me like that? You're not even scaring me, you look like you're trying to think of something to say to flirt with the new guy in school."

To this, Makoto leaned back suddenly with a blush on her face as well as a look that told him she was clearly mortified.

"D-Don't try to be full of yourself here, newbie!" She said this in a hushed tone earning a look from the teacher before going back to the lesson. She fell in silence at that but resumed whispering again to the blonde with utter contempt.

"When this is over, I'm having a few words with you." Makoto said this ominously. The students around them flinched, 'A few words' to Makoto meant a sizeable number of fists on something organic.

In this case, Makoto's veritable human punching bag was turning out to be the new blonde student.

"Is that an invitation to a date?" Naruto mentioned it this time, with a grin overcoming his features, his teeth accentuating his confident smirk. Of course, acting a little like Sasuke left a bad taste in his mouth, but seeing someone whom he didn't even know squirm around him made him feel amused.

Oh, he managed to hit a nerve alright, now with a flustered Makoto turning back to the lesson and Naruto answering the teacher with an uninterested tone thanks to his above average hearing and a mouthy classmate two rows ahead of him, the class went on without a hitch.

At lunch time, Naruto was quick to take the door and get out as he saw that Makoto was going to leave something unpleasant in areas he wished he never knew. Not that he was about to back down from a fight, he just didn't want to deal with this woman that looked like she was going to murder him.

"FIGHT ME!"

Makoto pointed to the blonde with her index finger that was several centimetres away from his nose. The blonde simply replied, "No."

With that, Naruto stood up and left the room followed by an equally miffed Makoto that kept challenging him.

"FIGHT ME!"

"No."

This exchange of words continued on for several minutes with Makoto tailing the blonde all around the campus and even passing by the teachers' office.

Naruto looked back and saw Makoto still behind him as they walked around. This girl just didn't know when to give up!

"FIGHT ME!"

"For the last freakin' time, no!" Naruto replied, now getting more annoyed than ever. Honestly, this woman couldn't take a hint? Why won't she shut up about this whole fight business?

"Why would you want to fight me anyway? You've got nothing to prove to me, I don't see you as any different as the last time I saw you toss bodies left and right, I only did what I thought was right. So what's the point of smashing my face in to the ground?"

To this, the brown haired girl replied, "Because my pride as a fighter is on the line here! A help from someone like you is an insult to my pride!"

"You people and your sense of self gratification…" Naruto commented as he shook his head in disapproval. In his home world, pride was only secondary to survival in their reasons for battle. Fights were almost synonymous to death matches and it culminated a mindset of a dog-eat-dog world. If you were weak then you will never survive to stamp out your legacy to the world, you will wither and die, and you will never have any amount of worth for the country that you fought for.

"Where are you going? Aren't you going to at least entertain the thought of having a match with me?" Makoto asked and Naruto looked back at her, giving a melancholic smile.

"Sorry, Makoto, I'm not like you, I don't fight unless I'm forced to or I want to. Maybe back then, when I was a little younger, I could have. But right now, I'm a different person." Naruto mentioned this as he waved the girl a silent goodbye and went back to the classroom with both hi hands in his pockets.

Makoto stopped dead in her tracks as she thought of the blonde as being both weird and probably a bit mysterious. Though being a new student doesn't excuse him from being so damn cocky!

"I'm not done with you yet." Makoto replied, but not as loud as what she had done earlier, but more like a small whisper, as if she was talking to herself but more like a vow.

Naruto turned into a corner and his impassive face was replaced with a small smile.

'_Kino Makoto, what an amusing girl.'_

* * *

><p>Later in the afternoon:<p>

As soon as the bell for the end of school for the day, Naruto grabbed his bag from his seat and headed out faster than anyone could blink. Ami wouldn't be able to go back with him; she was busy with her reviews for her entrance exams. That and Naruto had other agendas to attend to.

He didn't have a chance to scour the town to see any areas with no settlements. Right now would be the perfect time to do the things he needed to do without all of the unnecessary distractions (school) that plagued him and get started on re-learning and mastering Fuinjutsu to an extent greater than the Second, Fourth Hokage and the entire Uzumaki lineage combined.

After all, when has he not defied the odds before? One thing he had never forgotten was to see through oaths that he had sworn and kept. He wasn't one to take them back and a man should never back out from his words. It wasn't pride that made him that way though; it was his honour that he laid down when he swore that promise with blood.

It would probably take him till' nightfall in discovering a training ground he could claim on his own, but the blonde knew where he was supposed to go. Ami left a note on directions on how to get back to their house.

Naruto shrugged, the girl could have simply said that he go back the way he came to the school, it wasn't as if the entire building was going to move itself into another area.

As Naruto turned to a corner and into a small alley, he looked sideways and at the back, his expression turning from boredom to a frown. With bag still slung on his back, the blonde bounded from wall to wall and reached the rooftop with as much ease.

Naruto then gestured his hands to a simple hand seal, the seal of the ram, and a cloud of smoke surrounding the blonde soon appeared. When the smoke cleared, the blonde emerged with the same motorcycle helmet that he had used a while ago, the same gear and apparel he had worn and used against that yoma they faced in the mall.

It was then that he bounded from rooftop to rooftop and with his body in top physical condition, he was able to fully execute and time his Shunshin no Jutsu as he jumped.

A small structure connected near the town's small forestry soon caught his interest. From what he could tell, the place looked the same like the shrines back in his place.

The white ivory slabs of stone made up the stairs from the foot of the small hill up to the top, rough and easily breakable from the elements along with the red shrine gates at least ten meters tall that were lined straight and going up, to indicate that the place that people were about to enter to was sacred ground. He landed on trees and silently stayed in the background, careful not to be seen by any unsuspecting civilian.

Naruto looked down intently and saw girls that had the same uniform as Ami who were giddily walking away carrying small red charms all the while talking to each other.

From what he could hear of their conversation, it sounded like it was a charm for love. The blonde sighed, no, this place wouldn't do. People come here frequently even if it was heavily surrounded by trees. They will notice him if he were to do his assignments here. Just the students here would indicate that he was in no position to consider this one of his hiding spots for training.

The blonde was about to turn away but not before hearing something that caught his interest.

"Have you heard? Lately, there have been reports of people missing after they leave this shrine." One of the girls commented.

"They say that the missing people disappear around the time of six o'clock. I think it has something to do with those charms that were given to them from the shrine itself. Talk about scary!"

Naruto turned around, and frowned beneath his helmet. Rumours often held some form of truth in them, and sometimes the supernatural can be nothing more than a well orchestrated prank. He has done enough practical jokes that revolved around the subject or at least something similar to it.

In this case, people turning up missing would be nothing short of abduction or kidnapping. The blonde jumped down, forming a simple hand seal that replaced his current attire to his school uniform. When he reached the ground, three teenage girls were startled as Naruto dusted himself off.

"Sorry about that, I was hiding from some whacked up thugs that are pissed at me." The blonde apologized as he walked upwards and adjusting the bag he had at his side.

When he was getting closer to the top, he could hear a loud voice very familiar to him.

'_Usagi? What's she doing here?' _

Instead of reaching the top, the blonde hopped to his right and scaled the hill side slope before leaning against a tree to see what the dango head was up to.

He watched as a cheerful old man began pestering Usagi and her friends that resulted in a girl wearing a shrine maiden's outfit who slapped a fuuda on Usagi's forehead, pushing the girl backwards and falling back first, showing her panties to the world.

Naruto was shaking his head at this all with a blush along his face. Although that shrine maiden's handiwork on fuuda made him curious about her expertise in the subject. Maybe Fuinjutsu isn't a foreign art here as he had thought!

'_Still a man, after all.' _The blonde commented on himself as he could have sworn that he felt like he was peeping on himself.

' _Ugh, that's a thought I never want to cross again.' _It was at this time that Naruto decided to show himself. Getting a few heads turning across his way.

Naruto, being a boy with an incredible physical background, had a stature that many women would find eye catching. His uniform didn't do anything to accentuate his rippling muscles, but many women can tell by just how he stood with his posture. He wasn't slouching, nor was he exactly lanky. In the time he spent during his childhood crossing to being an adult, the blonde had grown tremendously in terms of height. Right now, he stood at an already impressive Five foot Eight. Two inches taller than he was about the time he arrived back in Konoha from his training trip with Jiraiya. Had the old pervert lived long enough for him to see Naruto become Hokage, the blonde ninja would have towered over him by then.

The blonde gave a casual wave at the group of girls and the old man as he asked, "I'm new around this town so I decided to explore around here. Can I have a moment's rest in your temple, first? I'm very much tired from all the walking I've been doing."

Rei was looking at the blonde intently and the blonde kept staring all around him to survey the area. It was as if he too was investigating something. But that couldn't be, he just stated he was new to the town, right?

To her side, Usagi's friends were already whispering at the sight of Naruto who was approaching them with a small grin on his face.

Naruto had then volunteered to help the shrine maiden carry Usagi as he felt he should do it instead of the miko who looked terribly exhausted from something.

As soon as they placed Usagi on the bed, Naruto requested for a glass of cold water and then asked something to the shrine maiden.

"Those seals that you have, I'm curious as to what they are. Can I have a look at just one?"

Usagi's friends were blushing all the while as Rei handed Naruto some of her seals. Naruto eagerly accepted one from her hand.

Rei looked at Naruto with wonder; did the boy have some sort of curiosity over mysticism and divination? It was rare for a boy like him to be interested in this kind of stuff at this day and age.

"Hmm... Looks like your standard repellent seal, if you ask me. Normally, this would work in disturbing energy and preventing a forceful entry that isn't exactly human to begin with. It's standard, but it's very well made, above average in fact."

Repellent seals were used on prison doors back in his home world too. Anyone that didn't have a recognizable chakra on the seal, it would reject any forced entry.

The blonde grabbed his bag and dug through his own set of fuuda that he had stashed in it.

Reis looked shocked about his statement on her fuuda. A boy like him, with just a glimpse and feel of the fuuda in his hands, he could already assess the purpose of the fuuda given to him!

"I've been learning seals for quite some time; my old master taught me the basics of sealing for two years. He's a pro at it." Naruto seemed to have answered her unasked question. The blonde then grabbed the fuuda he had in his bag and gave it to Rei.

"Here's some of the fuuda that I've made since a few days ago. I've made two types here. The yellow one is one that suppresses the cha- I mean, the energies that a person normally puts out and the red one well... Let's just say that you need a good distance for it to be safe. Just a warning though, it takes ten seconds for this to trigger, so once you place that seal, be sure to run."

The blonde then handed over two sets of seals to her, one in yellow paper while another in white that had a red outer lining on each side of the paper.

Rei had noticed the intricacies and the designs that the blonde gave her simply astounded her. These writings, they weren't the standard fuuda that she was used to! These were different, rare to say the least! And the writing system looked like it dated back before the Shogun eras! This looked WAY too advanced for someone claiming to be a beginner! Even she couldn't recognize this type of seal if he didn't say anything about them!

Before the miko could have a chance to question the blonde's prowess in sealing, their attendant with the same blonde hair as Naruto walked into the room and handed over a trey with towels and a glass of cold water that Naruto had requested.

Naruto remained silent as the man was clearly avoidant of staring at them and showing his eyes.

The blonde stood silent, a frown crossing his face as he drank his water, all the while looking around Usagi's friends who were awestruck with the man's beauty.

As soon as the man left, and with the mention of the word cute, Usagi looked like she had a spring on her back and toppled over her pet black cat with a crescent shaped scar on its forehead.

"Cute? Where? Huh? Naruto, when did you get here?"

Her classmates were surprised that Usagi knew such a hunk!

"I got here by the time you were warded off." He mentioned that last part with a muffled laughter earning a mean look from the other blonde and then a blush of embarrassment from the shrine maiden.

"Anyway, now that I'm properly rested, I should be on my way, I've got some stuff to do and I need to do it as soon as possible." Naruto stood up and stretched his back before craning his neck and walking out.

Usagi looked curious at this, "What are you going to do exactly?"

Naruto looked at him with a mischievous grin and replied, "That, Usagi-chan, is a secret!"

With that, he waved goodbye at the group of girls and closed the door behind him.

"How do you know him, Usagi?" One of her friends demanded while the said girl leaned back from the questions bombarding her.

"He's a friend of Ami's! I swear, I just met him a few days ago and that's it!"

And the questions kept pouring.

Once Naruto was out of sight, he again transformed into that helmet wearing shinobi. He jumped away from the temple and began surveying the area around him. From the looks of things, the temple had nothing to do with the missing people, at least, not directly.

Something clearly did not add up.

"The event occurs around exactly six pm. Ami said that buses are these large transportation vehicles that carry multiple people, so should I be searching for something long or something wide?" Naruto asked this to himself as he leapt from rooftop to rooftop. Still being new to this world, he has had nearly no experience in dealing with traffic and those horseless carriages they called, cars. To him, those things freak him out. How do they even manage to run?

The blonde landed on a sturdy power line as he looked down. From what he had gathered, the small district had a lot of bus stops since this place is a major commercial centre, meaning, if it was like Konoha's market, then the area is a major hub for shops and small businesses. And right he was. The bustling district had numerous shops to offer, from basic necessities to entertainment shops.

The blonde then crouched down and began looking everywhere his eye could see. With a simple breath, he took closed his eyes and entered into a deep trance.

It had been a while since he had used sage mode, heck, it was his first time using it here. He could feel the energy, culpable. Everywhere around him, it circulates. It was weird. It felt like chakra and it acted like chakra at the same time. It was different, yet the same. With a tug of that energy from the air around him, the sudden invigoration of the energy swept his entire being like electricity.

It was different. The flow of the energy was different. Usually, the natural energies would only mix with the flow of Physical and Mental energy so as to give a tremendous boost. But this, not only did it mix it also merged and sustained his chakra. The flow of the energy was both warm and soothing. It felt like the earth itself was nurturing one of its heralds.

He looked at his hands and removed the gloves that covered them; somehow, his skin was slightly luminescent. He could feel much stronger than he was, indicating his state entering into sage mode. Naruto jumped from the electrical pole and landed on to a rooftop and removed the helmet. He gazed at his reflection of his helmet, he could still see the red outline over his eyelids as to indicate the true markings of the sage, but what shocked him was his eyes.

They weren't like a toad's anymore, no, the color of the iris, the shape of the pupil, they remained the same, round sapphire orbs as opposed to golden ones. But what got his attention was that they were actually glowing along with his skin! This energy, the properties were much too different yet the behaviour is basically the same!

He wanted to test drive this new discovery as soon as possible, and soon, he felt a sudden indication of a different nature. Near the shrine, he could feel the sudden listlessness of the very energy itself, as if it was rejecting whatever it is that made its way around them.

Naruto soon arrived at the bus station that had been bothering him and saw Ami, pulling Usagi who was grappling the bus stop sign like her life depended on it.

"Usagi, this is no time to be afraid! You're making this harder than it should!" The bluenette said this as she pulled the moon princess over and over while the said girl remained stubborn (scared) about the whole thing.

Naruto landed on the sign, his arms crossed and in a squat. Naruto, then in his hand, was a small shuriken that the blonde threw at one of the charms, the throwing star's blade connected as the charm fell down on the ground, snapping one of the women out of her funk and looked rather scared as she was about to board the six o'clock buss.

"Get out now!" The blonde shouted as he reached out to the girl before the woman in the bulky uniform grab hold of her target.

Naruto let go of the girl on the ground, too shocked to move than anything else as the blonde ninja could hear the sound of the engines roaring to life. The blonde turned around as he looked back and saw the bus going away already. With as much as he could muster, the blonde ran after the bus with a speed many would consider beyond simple physical conditioning. Getting ahead of the said vehicle and empowered with the strange energy he had yanked away, the blonde forced the incoming bus to a halt when he pushed back against it and the bus failing to overpower the blonde.

He could tell that the energy flowing in him was going mad and erratic all around him as he saw the figure inside staring at the helmet wearing ninja in shock.

How could a puny human just stop and overpower a bus like that? That was stupidly insane!

The bus driver gritted her teeth and switched the bus' acceleration to high gear and Naruto began skidding back slowly from the force that the bus was pushing against him.

Naruto exerted much more force this time as he tried to push back the said vehicle while the energy within him was still present. With gritted teeth, he declared with strong conviction against the driver,

"You're not going anywhere!"

The blonde's figure was slowly making a mark on the bus, his body bending the metal surface and engraving the blonde in it.

Then, something happened.

His supply line of nature chakra was suddenly cut off, and the full weight of the bus slammed into him at maximum force sending him crashing towards a metallic lamp post. The said object, because of the force of Naruto's crash, bent forward, the sound of creaking metal was heard and the blonde's world was suddenly oriented to excruciating pain.

'_What the hell just happened?' _Naruto thought about this and saw the bus now levitating upwards and going to a portal that caught his eye. It did not however, relieve him of his pain.

'_That thing almost broke my spine!' _The blonde said this as he tried to get up and blood was now trickling down from his forehead.

From what he was feeling, it was probably a minor contusion and moderate skin laceration if the flowing blood was to be believed. The blood seeped out of his helmet and it showed, dripping from his cheek and falling down to the pavement.

'_I'm sure glad that I can still heal fast enough to recover from this.' _The blonde thought, he could feel the wound closing up, the blood hardening and flaking as he righted himself up.

Naruto looked to where the bus suddenly disappeared to. That small black portal opened something, and that something caught his interest. To him, this was his biggest find on this world. Portals, from what Jiraiya had taught him about the description of the Hiraishin no Jutsu; create a direct line from one point to another, by figuratively punching a hole through time and space. The Yondaime's prized jutsu essentially worked in the same principle as portals do, as in teleportation.

Seeing a portal like this, manifesting and disappearing before his very own eyes literally oozed out a certain desire within the blonde.

'_I may get to find my way home sooner than I thought.'_

The helmet wearing shinobi then leapt from his area, leaving behind an astonished duo that kept staring at the sight of the ninja that had suddenly stopped (and failing) a supposedly haunted bus.

"Where's he going?" Usagi asked while Ami kept frowning as she answered the blonde girl,

"It's probably to look for answers as well."

"That's great! I'll leave all of the fighting to him from now on then!" Usagi uttered cheerfully, at last, a person who was willing to take the responsibility off her! And this person seemed reliable on the matter as well! No need to go out risking her neck like that in one way or another!

The black cat with the moon scar on its forehead replied to the girl, "Usagi, don't be silly! He may be a much more competent and reliable person than you, but protecting the people here is YOUR responsibility!"

That somehow managed to hit Usagi where it hurts.

"H-Hey! I can be reliable too! I just don't want to fight!" Usagi argued and the cat simply scoffed it off.

"Be that as it may, your responsibilities are your own. That person may have his own motives and not one to be completely trusted. For all we know that person may just be waiting for the right time to strike. And that includes letting your guard down. A person like him, without us knowing much about him, should never be trusted so suddenly. He's a wildcard."

Ami seemed to have slightly frowned at that. No matter how right Luna was on her assessment, she had not personally met the ninja and it irked her that they would rather consider him a hostile rather than an ally. Naruto may be trained as an assassin, but he was a boy with pure intentions at heart. Luna wasn't there when a Yoma wrecked havoc at the local mall!

"Look, Usagi, we'll try this again tomorrow. So until then, toughen up your nerves and warn Rei that the rumors regarding the bus are true."Ami advised. She had to go to her review center and this was already dampening on her study time.

"Whaaaat? I have to climb that set of stairs again?" The rabbit haired girl replied, obviously disappointed that he was off the hook in this whole thing and had to climb back up the steep hill.

Naruto landed to one of the treetops near the shrine and quickly dispelled his henge. He landed down and quickly did a double take in order to make sure no one saw him. When the coast was clear, he began walking casually around the temple, careful that no one was detecting him.

'_That incident had something to do with this temple. People come here but once they get out, they're met with that weird bus. I know it isn't just coincidence that this was the temple that started the disappearances. There's a connection here, I know there is, and something or someone is sabotaging this place. Plus that portal...' _Naruto's thoughts were cut off when he was met with a very curious face. He took a step back slightly as the old man gave a huge grin and ushered a welcome within his temple.

"Ah, welcome to the temple youngster! I don't usually meet people from this side of the temple! Are you perhaps curious about the structure inside the temple? Well, how about a tour? Maybe you'd want to work here too!" The old man offered. To which Naruto suddenly had a bright idea.

If he had to find the culprit, that meant he had to infiltrate the entire temple for every nook and cranny that this place had. The temple priestess would have had to disagree and would most likely be offended if he went out and talked straight to her about his intentions, so he needed an excuse to get inside the temple and do a little exploring.

"I don't know old man. Your granddaughter sounds like she would object to the idea. I hear she can have a really nasty temper if she gets angry." He replied, trying to egg the old man on. He fell to the blonde's bait,

"That granddaughter of mine can understand. Besides we need helpers around the temple from time to time, I'll even pay you and bless you with lots of good luck!" The old man urged the blonde. Naruto acted as though he was thinking it hard. He was always good at hiding his emotions and displaying faulty ones.

"Add in a date with your granddaughter and we'll call it a deal." Naruto added as a joke to that old man, but the old man seemed much too eager not to let someone like him slip past him like that.

"DEAL!"

Naruto stood surprised just like that, he never expected for the old man to take his joke seriously! His mouth hanged agape with him staring at the old man as he dragged the blonde ninja along.

'_Well, at least I can get inside the temple itself.' _The blonde replied as he grabbed his bag and stealthily pulled out several fuuda from it.

* * *

><p>Thirty minutes later:<p>

Rei had just sent out that dango haired girl out of the temple after the tongue lashing she had given her.

"How dare she accuse the temple after I nursed her back to health? My charms are the cause of the disappearances? I've never heard such absurd things in my life!"

"So I said, 'The book sucked!' and my master went to sulk for week after reading his work!" The voice said as Rei heard a familiar laugh coming from behind the temple.

Turning to her back, she saw the blonde, a little banged up with small blood trails falling from his head that dried off and a few stains on his locks. To his shoulders sat her grandfather, laughing hysterically all the while carrying an orange book in his hands.

"What happened to you? I thought you were leaving a while ago!" Rei remarked as Naruto looked at the blood flaking on his cheek and his hair before looking up at the old man.

"Well, I was supposed to go back down, but then I accidentally tripped and hit my head near a tree so I went back up to ask for some first aid, but your grandfather decided I should take the tour when I got lost and decided, hell, I'll just help myself once I'm inside and agreed to the old man."

Rei was not so irritable after that when his grandfather stepped out of the blonde's shoulders and landed on the ground, shaking the blonde's hand with a grin and said, "That was the most fun I've had in a while, boy. I haven't laughed so hard like that in ages. Are you sure you don't want to help us out here, though? A little extra pair of hands would definitely be welcome, and you seem like you could attract a lot of attention here, if you know what I mean."

The old man added that last part with a wink and a nudge, earning an elbow drop from his granddaughter and a nervous laugh from Naruto.

"Sorry, old man, I've got lots to do and I live in some other part of town a little far away from here. That and my adoptive family are a little strict when it comes to studying. I don't think I could ever have the time to help out in the temple." The blonde answered and began to walk away before turning back and adding, "Besides, with your granddaughter working hard as she has, it's in capable hands!"

With that, the blonde went down the stairs as the old man waved at the boy.

"Thanks for the present! I'll treasure it!"

'_Now that I've set up array seals around that place, it's only a matter of time when that person comes and uses whatever jutsu he has that involves those portals.'_

Naruto looked back at the temple over his perch on to a concrete electrical pole as he watched the temple.

'_I just hope that I'm right about this for once.'_

The next day:

Naruto just received word from Dr. Mizuno that a certain university was interested in him about his prowess in the Japanese language and his ability to read ancient texts so seamlessly. The good doctor said that they were going to meet him at school and that Ami should accompany him. The girl, nevertheless nodded and obeyed her mother wordlessly as they went out of the house and headed to school.

Ami, however, looked rather distraught as the words of the cat lingered in her mind. Naruto had disclosed some facts about his past when he was hospitalized, he told her the event that had happened prior to his marooning on this planet and how he was sure that he should have died back then. He told her how terrifying his situation was, down to the last of his kind, forced to do battle to a person who was ready to extract his power along with his soul to be part of something much more sinister.

He told her how much carnage he had seen throughout the entire war, how many of their soldiers had died, how people of multiple legends were brought back to life as creatures of the undead and how much devastation it took his world during the course of the war.

So why was she doubting him? Didn't he save his world? Surely a hero like him would never come to destroy something that is similar to his home!

"Naruto, can I trust you?" Ami asked, all of a sudden, earning a look from the blonde who stopped drinking his iced coffee and looked back at the girl.

Where did this come from all of a sudden?

"Where did this come from all of a sudden?" The blonde voiced out his curiosity.

"Nothing, just, a question that's been lingering in my head. I want to know if I could really trust you." Ami replied, unsure of what to say. Naruto simply turned his head upfront and stopped, his voice, much more serious than it was before.

"Well then, are you willing to trust me?" Naruto asked back, Ami seemed taken by surprised by the blonde's reaction.

"The question is mutual too, Ami. Are you willing to trust me? Someone who you don't even know, someone who you have questions for that needs answers, can you really take the risk of trusting a trained assassin who can't even deliver straight answers? Better yet, can I trust you about my identity as a ninja? Can I expect you to at least keep it a secret from everyone and that includes your mother and Usagi?"

Now that stopped Ami in her tracks, unlike Naruto, she had no need to worry about her identity as Sailor Mercury, Luna said something about their magic being able to forget their faces once they power down.

Naruto didn't have that luxury.

What's worse, with what she could deduce from his stories, is that his powers were exploitable.

"My past and background is questionable, I never really told you anything past the important stuff. All you know was the Fourth Shinobi War and nothing else. But here's something I have to tell you, I don't want to talk to you about my past, my childhood has been surrounded by secrets, secrets that if anyone outside my home knew, it would have been devastating for me. I've been wronged, unjustly by those secrets, but I was saved. I've been betrayed, left out, and even almost killed by my best friend thrice. I have seen true evil, Ami, seen what it can do, how horrible it can get and how much you can't turn your eyes away from it. I've seen how much a man can change depending on the choices that we make. I know Ami, I've been there, believe it."

By now Naruto crushed the can from his hand and continued, "I'm fighting the Youma because it's the right thing to do, because I have a debt to this town, because I have seen evil, and because I was born as a protector. That's all there is to it."

Ami stopped in her walk as he answered her, Luna's words vanishing from her thoughts, a smile escaping her lips.

'_Someone like Naruto, who has risked his life for everything but himself, I shouldn't have doubted him.'_

Once Naruto and Ami arrived at school, he pushed Ami lightly to the side and ducked quickly as a kick went past to where his head should have been suddenly with a brown haired girl landing to his front and snarling at him.

"Uzumaki Naruto, fight me!"

"Hello to you too, Makoto..." Naruto's instantaneous reply as he swerved side to side from Makoto's punches and added quite gleefully seeing an eyeful of white panties, "No violence in school, remember?"

"Uzumaki! Kino! What is the meaning of this?" A teacher asked as Makoto suddenly felt a chin down her spine.

"You two! At my desk, now!"

At the teacher's faculty room, their advisor began yelling at them both as he hit both Makoto and Naruto on the head with his Harisen.

"This school has never been known for that much violence! You two should seriously consider yourselves lucky!" The teacher said, Naruto looking unconcerned while Makoto looked like she was sorry. The brown haired girl looked to her side and saw Naruto looking some other way, as if he wasn't listening to what the teacher said.

The boy never said anything about him not saying anything to provoke her, heck he didn't even looked fazed by the teacher's lecture. All she saw was he was unconcerned.

"As punishment, you two are going to clean the classroom for a whole week!"

Makoto just stood agape while Naruto simply sighed. This girl was so much trouble for him. He wondered what it would have happened if he hadn't helped her from the beginning.

"You can get back to the classroom now. As for you, Uzumaki, stay here, a certain someone would like to see you. Since it's just Japanese in your current period, I think you wouldn't need it with this thing going around. Or so I heard about it from Dr. Mizuno." The teacher announced and Makoto got out, curious as to what their teacher was talking about. Putting that aside, he had to talk to Naruto later. The boy had never really said anything prior to their talk with the teacher. He never denied in being part of the fight nor did he give out any provocation in there that should have warranted a punishment.

As she entered her classroom, he heard a certain rumor going about.

"Have you guys heard? They say that someone from Toudai took interest in one of the students here in school!"

"Yeah, I hear it's from the archaeology department! They say that some kind of prodigy here can read and understand ancient texts so fluently, that they're thinking of funding a scholarship for him once he reaches college and chooses their course along with an immediate spot in their faculty and team!"

"Hey, isn't that a bit overkill?"

"It's all true, I heard from one of the sensei's that they're willing to go that much to have him learn at Toudai."

"N-No way! Toudai is like, the best university in Japan!"

"I know, right?"

Makoto didn't care though. She simply plopped back to her seat and listened to the class. If anything, her mind was on something else.

* * *

><p>Back with Naruto:<p>

Naruto was sitting idly by his advisor's desk as he waited for this supposed professor to come. When he heard the door clicked, he was surprised that Dr. Mizuno was there along with a tall man with gruff looking appearance and wearing a small pair of glasses approached him. Behind the man was another girl, slightly older than him, who had hair, dark green, coloured like a good amount of moss had been living in it while her eyes were as scarlet as her earrings and ribbon.

Naruto looked in awe of the girl, no, woman's beauty before him as she gave him one graceful yet beautiful smiles he had ever seen in his entire life.

"Ah, so you must be the boy that Dr. Mizuno was telling me about." The old man said and Naruto nodded.

"I wanted your evaluation done in school since this will make you late for your next class. I told Professor Kawahara of your strange skill and he became interested to the extent of how much you knew about your 'current skills'." Dr. Mizuno mentioned and the professor lightly gave a laugh.

"Oh, Dr. Mizuno, the boy here is simply gifted. If he could understand and write such a complicated writing system that even the best of my colleagues find hard to do, I would say that this boy has what it takes to answer the questions that I'm going to give him." To this, the professor ruffled the Naruto's head who suddenly asked, "Wait, what's this about questions?"

The girl was the one to answer for him, "It means the professor is going to give you a simple test on how much you know about the ancient language. It's fairly short and probably won't take you more than ten minutes to finish."

"That is, if you can understand the texts inside your exam that I'm about to give you of course." The professor said handing Naruto the paper while the blonde grabbed a pen.

"Before I forget, you should also answer the test with the same writing style that I've used."

The blonde nodded and looked at his test paper once more, his eyebrow was raised.

'_Are you fucking kidding me?'_

Naruto felt like he was in the first year of his academy when he was answering the questions. Questions that he could answer without a second thought!

'_What is your name? Write it legibly on the blank provided with the same writing style.'_

The whole test was one fucking joke to him!

'_What is your favourite food?'_

The blonde looked annoyed at the test as he answered them one by one. It looked like some of the questions he answered were meant for that small book that Sakura and Ino had when they were kids, a slam book.

Once he was done, he gave the answers to the professor and was surprised that the boy had finished the entire test in just five minutes.

The boy had just answered the whole test without problems at all!

"Hmm, quite a boy we have here, Dr. Mizuno, I think he'll fit in fine in Toudai once his tenure in High School is over. He won't be needing tests to get into the school anymore."

"He's that good, huh?"

"I say the ancient language he learned is something even I can't put into words. He's beyond the reach of the teachers here when it comes to the standard curriculum of Japan in Niponggo. I'd say exempt him from every exam in the language past graduation, it would be useless to even try to put him in the same league as the students." The professor said, earning a look of disbelief from Dr. Mizuno. This boy is a diamond in a sea of rhinestones.

The professor then turned to the young boy and stretched out his hand, "Well, young man, or should I say, Naruto-kun, congratulations in passing the test with flying colours. I'm sorry, me and my assistant haven't introduced ourselves properly. I am Heishiro Kawahara, Dean of the College of Archeology in Tokyo University, and this is my assistant..."

"Setsuna Meioh, currently a Physics Student and assistant to the dean of archaeology in Toudai." The pretty girl added earning a small laugh from the blonde.

"We will be eagerly awaiting your entry into our college, Naruto-kun, your unique set of skills will be very interesting to see in the future."

With that, the duo gave a bow to the blonde and to Dr. Mizuno before leaving. The good doctor then turned back to Naruto and gave a smile so wide that the blonde thought it was going to tear her face apart.

"If your parents are here right now, Naruto, they would surely be proud of you. But since they aren't right now, let me be the one to show that pride for a boy that I could treat like a son. I'm sorry that I described your skill set as more of a hobby than anything else"

Naruto blushed from Dr. Mizuno's comment earning her a smile of his own.

"Thanks... Dr. Mizuno."

With that Naruto walked back into class, with the current period over, the teacher just nodded to the blonde's arrival and left. The students were staring back and forth to the teacher and the blonde who looked unfazed as did Makoto before they all erupted into a synched expression of surprise.

"EEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHH?"

Later that afternoon, as the students dispersed from class and their questioning of the blonde, Makoto approached the blonde boy with a question of her own.

"You never said anything about not provoking me and attacking you suddenly like that. You should have said something to defend yourself!"

Naruto looked at Setsuna then back at the desk he was cleaning as he replied, "I'm not one to leave a person behind. I wouldn't be cool if I suddenly left someone behind and suffer."

Makoto blushed suddenly at Naruto answer and instead of asking further questions, she instead went back into sweeping the floors and a haughty reply, "W-Whatever! Quit trying to act cool, anyway, it doesn't suit you!"

"Sure." Naruto replied offhandedly as he began clapping the board erasers together to get rid of the chalk dust that had been accumulating in it.

When they were about to finish, a sudden spike made its presence known to the blonde.

'_The seal arrays were triggered!'_ The blonde mentally shouted as Makoto approached the blonde.

"Hey Naruto, we're just about done here. Can we please go outside and leave these to the janitors to clean up?" Makoto asked and Naruto didn't answer. The brunette went to the blonde to see if something had happened and what she saw made her step back a little in surprise.

The blonde, looking half interested all the time at school, now looked serious. A sight Makoto had never seen before. And his silence, quite frankly, it was scaring her.

"I'm sorry Makoto, I have to go; something just came up. We're done here anyway. The staff can do the rest." With that, Naruto ran from the classroom at speeds Makoto never even knew he could accomplish and vanished from sight as he approached the stairs.

"I said that a couple of minutes ago, you dunce!" Makoto shouted before leaving the classroom, her nose held high from Naruto's sudden departure.

Naruto had reached the school rooftop and immediately, pressed his hands together for a hand seal and began pumping chakra to his feet.

He squatted down slightly, as the rush of the chakra pumping in his feet earned a small updraft that made his hair dance wildly at the wind.

"Shunshin no Jutsu!"

With that, Naruto bounded from the school rooftop and headed towards the other side of town, to the Hikawa Shrine.

With Rei:

"So you were the one responsible for this whole thing! You were the one that kept giving those dud charms and spiriting those poor girls away while this shrine serves as your scapegoat!" Rei went for one of her fuuda but was surprised when she grabbed the yellow one that Naruto had given her.

Rei looked at the fuuda apprehensively but decided to try it nonetheless. With that, she hurled the Fuuda straight to the man that caused her so much grief these past few days and the fuuda stuck to him like sticky paper.

The man struggled but found his movements stunted by the fuuda that was placed in his chest. He felt like he was paralyzed and every movement in his body were gone.

"W-What did you do to me?" He asked, struggling and enraged at the same time. A little girl was able to bind him and sealed his movements so quickly? Unacceptable!

"I sealed your movements with that charm. Now you can't do anything and I'll exorcise you from this world, vile demon!"

Rei began her chant as she grabbed a white fuuda from her kimono and began her divination ceremony.

"Rin, Pyo, Tou, Sha, Kai, Chin, Retsu, Zai, Zen!"

The fuuda then glowed into a luminescent white light, engulfing the paper as the writing made itself appear before her as the paper swayed from the divination that Rei performed.

"Such petty tricks won't work on me!" The man shouted and the seal in his chest suddenly tore off, Rei was suddenly thrown back by an invisible force as she was introduced in a world of pain.

'_The seal... Didn't work? But how?'_

Her question would never be answered as she was suddenly hurled into a vortex that the man created who smiled wickedly at her.

"You have lost foolish miko."

"Unfortunately for you, she's not the only person you have to fight."

Jadeite turned around, and suddenly saw a sole of a shoe flying straight to his face and with him having no chance of evading it whatsoever.

The helmet wearing ninja slammed his foot on to the man who was thrown back with such force that he was embedded to the wall.

"THAT WAS FOR YESTERDAY, ASSHOLE, AND I'M NOT EVEN DONE YET! NOT BY A FUCKING LONGSHOT!"

Naruto cracked his knuckles and looked down on the ground, seeing the fuuda that Rei used earlier, the seal must have been too weak to hold this one back.

"Let's start with round one!" Naruto said as he kicked the man once more who tried to get himself out of the wall but soon found out that he was nailed to it once more. Naruto then punched him in the gut before giving the man a jarring uppercut to the chin. Naruto then proceeded to jab the man's face several times before giving off a right and left hook to the man's temple.

Jadeite struggled, bloody, battered and bruised; he kicked the blonde at the stomach in a desperate attempt to counter as the ninja jumped back and rubbed the area where Jadeite hit.

"You hit like a girl, and you look like one as well, why don't you become a drag queen instead? You obviously suck at fighting. An old lady back home would have pounded your face in like mush in seconds!"

Jadeite rubbed the green blood away that was falling from his lips as he gave Naruto one nasty glare.

"Shut up. I am one of Queen Beryl's most powerful soldiers! A weak human like you cannot possibly fathom the power that I wield!" With that, Jadeite created another dark portal as Naruto grinned. This was his chance. With a simple raise of his hand, Jadeite pulsed his energy at Naruto who anchored his feet with chakra as he charged at Jadeite who looked surprised that the helmet wearing ninja was able to resist his power like that.

"Your army and queen must be pretty weak then, if you're one of her strongest minions!" The ninja replied as he grabbed Jadeite by the throat, the Youma general glared in contempt at the blonde as his green eyes drew in rage from the ninja's taunts.

"Don't _ever_ talk down upon her majesty that way!" Jadeite then kicked the blonde at the chest once more as he pushed the ninja towards the portal, but not before Naruto creating a clone and dragging him along with the ninja.

"Don't even think you can get away from me!" And with that, both of them were sucked into the portal.

Once they had arrived at their destination, Naruto once more saw the sailor senshi, and this time with another one looking like the miko from the shrine as they were struggling to fight against their monster of the week.

Jadeite soon followed, struggling to get up, that masked boy's punches on him really took a toll on him.

"Having trouble, girly man?" Naruto taunted once more, earning another look of contempt from the general as he snapped his fingers. The busses that were floating around were now lining up beside him and the blonde scowled. This guy fought just like Pain. However, unlike the man with the god complex, Shinra Tensei was much more devastating.

Jadeite didn't reply as he simply began throwing the buses at him. The blonde gave a wicked grin, and placed his hands in a seal he was all too familiar with.

"Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Mass Shadow Technique)!" Soon, hundreds of clones popped into existence. He knew just what Jadeite was up to now.

"Now you just pissed me off more!" The clones each acted as a human cushions as they all forced to stop the wave of buses being hurled at them. Some of them right out went to Sage Mode without thinking of the scenario yesterday and tore off the roofs of every bus that they could reach and rescuing every single girl on the bus.

The real Naruto had been scaling up towards the general as he jumped from bus to bus. From a roof, to a chassis, Naruto expertly and remarkably climbed his way up with perfect agility, agility that no human could ever possess. With as much speed that Naruto needed, the ninja threw a pair of shuriken to the general who aptly evaded it in time, only to be met with another Naruto behind him, with his hands carrying loud whirling vortices in the shape of a ball.

"Rasenrengan! (Twin Spiralling Spheres)"

Jadeite had no intention on being hit by such a weird technique as put all the energy he can muster in repelling the blonde away from him.

Naruto was pushed back, the energy sending him flying and crashing to the ground below with his technique dispelling.

With his honed reflexes, Naruto was able to land on his feet, crouching and staring up at the Youma general with a look of disdain. The blonde stood up as the man gritted his teeth in frustration. This is, by no means, a mere human. He could fight and show strength like in ways that he never could dream of. This person just managed to make him, one of the generals of Queen Beryl's army, was nothing more than a mere plaything in his grasp.

"I'll remember you, boy; I'll remember to kill you slowly once we meet again. Tell me your name boy, and I'll be sure to put you as my number one target next time, so that I will instil fear into your heart from this day forth!"

The boy beneath the helmet merely smirked and said with as much defiance, "I am Hokage, the shadow of the flames that burn bright in the darkness! From now on tell this to your comrades as you cower away that I will be your executioner!"

Jadeite didn't like the boy; he was not someone who could be taken lightly. Aside from being able to manifest multiple copies of himself, he had quite the reflexes, the strength, speed and agility to fight like no other human.

He also fought dirty. He used sneak attacks, backstabs and pinned people down without a chance to fight back.

He didn't fight honourably, he fought with a brutality one could expect coming from a war veteran.

Naruto then pointed to the general as he faded.

"I let myself get pulled into this vortex to see just what it does exactly, and I was right, it can pull people to another dimension, the same technique as that of one of my greatest enemies. If you can do that, that means you have the means to travel through dimensions."

'_And one day, I'll be able to get that information from you or your associates. Once that happens, I'll be able to go home. Until then, enjoy your sense of superiority, because I'll be the one kicking you and your kind to the curb once I'm done.'_

Naruto then looked back, hearing the sound of a functional bus waiting for him to get on board.

"One day, I'll be able to get home but until then, I'll be sure to stop you all." Naruto said this as he jumped on to the roof of the truck and sailed towards the light and out of this warped dimension. He saw the one who was banging the horn at his front, wearing what looked like an expensive piece of a suit and top hat partnered with a white mask and a black cape. Damn did he look much too different from the rest of the heroes here!

As all of this was going on, Sailor Moon managed to talk with Sailor Mars, "He's one of our friends! He beat a youma up back in the mall a few days ago! We should go say hi to him once we get back!"

But they never did have a chance to introduce themselves or thank the boy properly as when the bus landed back to earth, the ninja vanished in a plume of smoke without as much as a trace.

* * *

><p>To be continued...<p>

Ah it feels nice to be able to write again. Med School has been a pain but at least I got through First Year without much trouble! Unfortunately, the problem with the coming year ahead is that although the schedule is a bit lighter, I've been elected as Vice-President of External Affairs by my student council and as much as I want to resign, there is no one to replace me for my position! D:

So here I am, my work as the VP started a few days ago and the fucking work load is killing me the entire summer! And this chapter has been on my mind for days on end after the school year and I didn't know where to put the where to the what in doing writing for my hobby and my sidejob!

As always RnR and tell me what you think!


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